I vote for Epox EP-8RDA mobo from
www.tcwo.com for $99 including free shipping or
www.newegg.com for $103 including free shipping.
Grab an AMD XP processor - either Tom's Hardware or Anandtech.com did a test and the XP2000+ matched the 2.2GHz P4. The XP2000+ is about $80 including shipping but you can find the XP1700+ with free shipping at
www.newegg.com for $51 and it is only 10 - 15 percent slower than the XP2000+ depending on what you want to do. I am now considering the 1700+ because it is a lot cheaper and it is the Thoroughbred design chip instead of the Palomino.
Best Buy had the 100gig Western Digital hard drive on sale for $75 after rebate and coupon but the coupon expired yesterday. It is now $90 after rebate. That is still very good and it has 8 meg buffer instead of the usual 2 meg buffer. Can't beat less than $1 per gig.
Try Office Depot for a CD-RW for less than $20 after rebate but my local one is out of stock. Go to
www.spoofee.com and see if you can get this deal by following their directions.
You can get a stick of PNY 256MB PC2100 DDR 266MHz memory for $45 after rebate at Best Buy this week. Get two of them to take advantage of the DDR. Buy on separate receipts so you can get both rebates by using different addresses. I got some Kingston for $40 and some Crucial for $35 at BestBuy during the last month so if you can wait you might do better than the current deal. Also check Pricewatch because it seems like $40 - $50 per stick is the usual rate.
You can find NICs anywhere. By the way, if you pay $10 more you can get the Epox EP-8RDA+ (instead of the EP-8RDA) which includes onboard LAN and Firewire. This will make the NIC redundant. I am getting the cheaper card because the 8500DV has Firewire on it and I have NIC cards around the house.
Tom's hardware just did a review of coolers yesterday and
www.newegg.com has the Coolermaster HAK-V81 Ice Dream for $15 delivered and it was adequate for an XP2600+ so it will be great for your box. It has temperature controlled variable fan speed which means it will be quiet unless it needs to really crank.
Directron.com has the Fortron 300 watt power supply for $27 plus about $6 for shipping and it was one of the best PSUs in a review at Tom's and it is at least $20 cheaper than the others.
I don't know a thing about cases because I am reusing my old Dell boxes.
For video cards, if you wait two weeks you can get the Epox EP-8RGA+ which is identical to the 8RDA+ except it has integrated graphics for about $20 - $30 over the price of the RDA+. I expect it will be sub-$150 for the mobo with integrated graphics. The graphics chip will be based on the MX440 which is OK. If you want better gaming ability than with that then look at the review at
www.pcmag.com - they liked the MSI and Leadtek GeForce4 Ti4200 cards. I have seenthem for less than $150. If you want Tivo-type multimedia functionality then look at the ATI 8500DV All-In-Wonder at Buy.com. I got it for $150.38 after rebate with free shipping which made it about the same price as the 7500 All-In-Wonder.
That is what I am building. Good luck.
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