After somewhere close to two months of waiting for various parts to arrive, and waiting for certain slack ass motherfuckers to take me out for the rest of what I needed, the new machine is up, running, and purring like a digital kitten. Considering that one usually needs to spend around 3k for something that's truly top of the line, I think I did a damn good job with a budget of 1.8k; there are plenty of corners to be cut on top of the line systems, and nobody needs most of the extra bells and whistles as it is.
Component list:
ASUS P3BF-5 motherboard, ~$135 - The P3BF line has been out for at least a year and a half, I have one in my other system, and I decided to get another one here... they are damn good motherboards, and will accept processors at least up to the 800mhz mark. 800 not good enough, you say? Want a litle more? No problem... I'll probably overclock to about 900 once I get a good HSF assembly. The one I use now is just to keep the thing from melting... the recent Intel chips tend to run rather hot.
Pentium III 800mhz, 100mhz FSB, ~$240 - Not exactly top of the line, but I can't think of a good reason to spend at least twice as much on a chip that will only be around 25 percent faster. The performance increase in moving to the 1ghz mark and beyond does not merit the extra cost, and there really isn't much out there right now that needs that kind of processing power. As I say, I may push it up to just under 900mhz, but the current speed really is suitable for most anything one could want to do.
PNY 128mb SDRAM, PC-133 ~$180 - Not much to say about this one, really. If one wants to overclock, it's always good to have faster memory, so I elected to go with PC-133 over PC-100.
Blah HSF assembly, ~$15 - There were no good HSFs at CompUSA. This one will be fine for now... while it's not remotely good, it does keep the chip from melting.
3D Prophet II GTS 64mb, ~$420 - By far the most expensive component in my system, and also the most important, as far as I'm concerned. I'm a fan of first-person-shooters, and I want 72 frames per second, regardless of how graphically intensive the game may be. The latest NVIDIA detonator drivers are wonderful, and they accomodate overclocking (as well as underclocking) of both the core GPU and memory. If you can't afford the $420 price tag, go with a castrated MX version, and I promise you there will be virtually no difference in performance if all you like to play is counter-strike. The GeForce chipsets are just plain beautiful. Everyone should have them.
Phillips 107S 17" monitor, ~$200 - Some people like to have the larger monitors, and that's great, yay for them. Personally, I don't believe that anyone needs more than 17", and I'm not about to lug a monster 21" monitor anywhere. No sir.
Memorex 48X CD-ROM, ~$45 - It's going to rip music cds plenty fast... someone suggested that I go with a Kenwood 72X for that purpose, but it's just not going to make a difference... if there's going to be a speed bottleneck, it's more than likely going to result from hard drive speed, or the lack thereof. And that is why there is such a thing as RAID controllers.
SB LIVE! X-Gamer 5.1, ~$100 - Can't beat this soundcard, period. It works with anything, and unlike the MP3+ flavour, it comes with decent software titles. I opened the box and was greeted by DeusEx, Thief II, Unreal Tournament, and MDK2. I have yet to install any of these games, but I am fairly sure they are all full versions. Bitchin.
Western Digital 40gb 7200RPM, ATA-66 support, ~$200 - I don't need to praise Western Digital drives... they speak for themselves. I mentioned ATA-66 support, and according to a slip of paper in the box, it seems as though they can also be converted to ATA-100. Bonus, but the motherboard I have doesn't support it.
Microsoft Intellimouse Optical, ~$60 - I'm tired of dealing with having to clean mouse balls and the rollers inside of the mice, so I was definitely happy to get one. In theory, they are suposed to work on just about any surface, but I still find myself using a standard mouse pad with them... it skipped a lot on my tabletop , and I think the way they slide on a tabletop is a bit unnatural. This mouse took some getting used to, it's probably around 50% larger than the blah 3-button Logitech mouse I was using before. It does have a grand total of five buttons, however, and they can be assigned to whatever you would like them to be.
CompUSA 300W ATX case, ~$70 - I had a few problems getting some of the cards to fit into this case properly, and at first, it was either have them properly anchored in, but not properly seated (and thusly undetectable by the motherboard) or properly seated, but not properly anchored. Eventually I found a compromise. I guess you get what you pay for. Honestly, it was the 300W power supply with a reasonable price that lured me in.
CompUSA blah white keyboard, ~$10
Netgear 6-port hub, ~$40 - I have a dsl line and another computer, so it was pretty critical to get a hub of some kind. I didn't need six ports for myself, but it's entirely possible that i may find myself at a lan party sometime, with no hub in sight.
Logitech QuickCam Web, USB port variety, ~$80 - I got my first cam around three years ago... and I paid a couple hundred dollars for it... now they are starting at roughly a quarter of the price, and they don't use those bastard parallel ports anymore. Grrr. This cam is nothing exceptional... unlike the older cam, it's doesn't perform worth a shit in low light. One advantage it does have over the old one is more functionality... there is more control over the image quality, and I have mine set up so that the webcam feed is more or less dark green, with some dark blues in there. Yes, I like it like that. Considering that the older cam would work in just about any amount of light, and still pump out clear pictures, I'm rather disappointed with this one... but at least it uses USB ports.
KTI Networks KF-230TX/2 network card, price unknown - This was given to me. Network cards will typically run around $30-$50, fancy ones are completely unnecessary.
Mousepad, ~$5 - I didn't want a mousepad that had Pikachu, kitty cats, or CompUSA logos on it, so I went with Buzz Lightyear.
Grand Total: ~$1790
That pretty much covers it... software was either given to me, or I found it online and cracked/warezed them, with the exception of a new copy of Half-Life. I didn't bother with buying a modem, as I have dsl. I also didn't bother to get a floppy drive... I may later, but I really don't need one at this point.
It's 9am here, I'm fucking tired. I shall pass out now.