If you had a 3,000 dollar limit to building a computer?

Ok, I have about 3,000 dollars us to spend on my next computer, I just got my current computer about a year and a half ago but I feel as though i'm being left in the dust. My current pc is as follows:

1.4ghz AMD processor
Sound Blaster 16 PCI =\
Creative 4.1 Speakers/Subwoofer
512 SDRAM at 133
80 gig 7200 HD ( i think it's at 7200)
24x Max DVD/WR drive
19 inch 17 viewable compaq monitor
Radeon 9000 pro 128 meg

Ok, keeping in mind my current set-up. With around 3 grand what kinda computer could I build and what would be the spec's on it. Any help in this situation would be *greatly* appreciated.

Thanks!

 

3000? you can build a SWEEEET pc for that money..

Latest AMD CPU, 1G DDR333(PC400), 2 80G WDJB800's , Cube case with 430W pws, Latest Nvidia or ATI card top of the line. Doesn't matter which one. Raid mother board (Nforce2 based). Top of the line Hercules sound card. Klipsch 6.1 surround sound speaker system. Network Card.. Yeah, and you should have some cashola left to put down on a monitor. 3000G for the core and no periphs is like gold!
have fun!

 

What Kodo said. Plus, with the leftover money, upgrade to WinXP if you haven't yet, scrutinize your peripherals (printer/scanner/?) and look at a good digital camera if you have any interest there.

 

for 3 grand you could do a lot with 1500 you coulld still do quite a bit, i dont knwo what you perfer but if u like amd go with a amd xp3000 with the bartons core, or if your a pentium user go with the 3.06 with the hyperthreading and make sure u get a board that supports it, maybe some dual channel ddr pc 400 333mhz
maybe an scsi harddrive about 100 gb, and a thermaltake case i dont know a nice soundcard im not much into sound and maybe an nvidia ti4600 or a 9700 pro theres a lot of good cards on the market and i would spend the extra $$ for xp pro

 

yeha I'g go XP3000 with an Nforce 2 mainboard and 4 sticks of PC3200 ram, use the pairs so you can take advantage of the dual channel architecture, besides, when are you really going to upgrade past a gig of memory?
I'd wait a little while and get dual SATA drives and put them in a raid array. Might as well wait the 3 months to get the latest drives.
Agreew with kodo on the hercules sound card, or stick with the onboard dolby digital of the nforce.

 

SATA has a bit of maturing to do yet.. It's not really any faster than the ATA-100's , though with refinements I'm sure it will eventually be the speed king of the IDE interface.

 

Personally I would go for the following:

mobo;Abit NF7S
CPU:Amd xp 3000 barton
memory:4XDDR 400 OCZ 512
hardrive;western digital caviar 200 gb
graphics;siluro GF4 mx-8x/lp Abit
case; 19" 4u rackmount (personal choice !)
monitor:eyegonomic T15 tft (very expensive but very nice)
With the above motherboard you need,nt bother with a sound card,ethernet modem ect as it,s all onboard,unless of course your a real hi-fi buff.For an os I would stick to something like 98se,or try out xp professional.I personally think in the future the pci slots will be more or less redundant as motherboard manufacturers include more and more of the traditional add ons as standard.


Wish I had the money to do it !

 

Asus A7N8X Deluxe
AMD AthlonXP 3000+
2x512MB Corsair XMS3500 Ramsticks
2x80GB hdd's (doesn't really matter which brand, although I personally swear by MaXtor's DiamondMaxPlus series)
top of the line videocard (either the GeForce FX5800 Ultra or the ATi Radeon9800)
Phlips or Hercules top of the line soundcard
nice speakers
430Watts PSU
case
dvd-rom player
cd-burner or dvd+rw burner
monitor
Logitech MX700 mouse (very nice mouse)
keyboard

 

yes, but from what I've seen in it's current form it still uses less CPU cycles, almost on the level of a scsi drive.

 

My RAID setup uses 3-4% tops.. With the CPU's these days and especially with HT on the P4's, 2% isn't going to mean squat when the I/O is what really counts. SATA is simply not worth it at this stage in the game. Heck ATA 133 isn't even worth it.