[Cyrax9]

Personally the only thig I disagree with in Pika's post is SCSI drives, they're faster, but still not as good as EIDE drives in terms of not overheating, and a good EIDE drive is almostas good as a SCSI drive in tems of speed, and costs much less. An external Modem is great, but make sure you have room for i on a desk, I had to make room for my cable modem, and it's beter than any 56K modem I've used in every possible sense.

Alsao if you're installing Dual HDD's, and maybe more, try to instal them in every OTHER bay, this keeps the Machine from Overheating.

USB i8s a nessaeccisty, but Firewire is pretty bad as of now, I know some people who have it, my aunt works in the IT buisness, and even she hates firewireports. I'd make sure you have ample USB ports, and if you can Daisychain something, do so, otherwise those 4 USB ports will be full in no trime weith stuff that could be dasiychained, when stuff that Can't be needs to fill those ports. Case and Point. Keep your USB Ports as free as possible.

Also if you do decide to dasiychain USB stuff, USe the Gold-plated Cables to increase transfer speed, I reccomend Belkin Cables, and I'm looking at USB hubs myself, nbecause I was too stupid to get 4 USB ports last year, and now I have none free. If you have a USB Modem DO NOT Daisychain it, or you'll lose speed, printers,scanners, cameras and that kind of stuff ae better suited for dasiychaining.

If you're thinking about turning some anolong VHS tapes into good DVD's, buy a DVD-R+RW CDR-/RW combo drive, and make sure it's good model, otherwise you might be wasting alot of Recordable Media.

Finally Remember, Always use thermal Grease, or you'll be throwqing away ALOT of MONEY due to an overheated proccessor!!!

Here's what I'd do.

Build the best Rig on the market within your budget, but make sure that the Mobo is your primary piece of equpiment. If you do this, you can upgrade alof of stuff, and stretch a 3-year PC's life to about 7 years for basic applicatiuons, and 6 years for certain Games.

Proccessor speed counts, don't skimp on your Proccessor!

AAvoid DVD_RAM if you're going to burn DVD's, and use DVD-R and DVD+RW instead, it's more likely to become the standsard, and it costs less than DVD-RAM. I didn't wait to buy my PC, and wound up with RDRAM, which is a pain, since DDR RAM is much beter, just be carefuyul with your DDR RAM, it's alot more sensitive than your old SDRAM.

MAKE SURE TO WEAR STATIC TAPE!!! is this was a simple upgrade I'd Just discharge myself on the PSU, but thjis is the whole machine, so Static tape is a nessecity.