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"Building my own PC, your opinion?"

1GHz or higher + AMD Athlon CPU (New motherboard aswell)
512Mb PC133 SDRAM
40GB (7200 RPM)
NVIDIA GEFORCE 2 MX-400 64MB AGP
17" digital monitor
100Mbps PCI Network Card
3½' FLOPPY DRIVE
FULL-TOWER 300W
Cables/fans etc etc

Thinking of building a low budget PC, with specs similar to this. Has anyone else done something similar to this? If so, how much did you pay for the parts in total.

Or, if anybody has any better ideas for building an excellent low budget PC. (eg. using SR products)
My budget is £600-650
We could see who comes up with the cheapest/powerful combination.
LukaZ :)

I'v always wanted to build my own PC but do not have enough confidence, how ever easy it is alledged to be. I can do Memory, Graphic, Sound Cards even CDRW's but other boards are complicted.

I would sugest you try what I am doing. I have enrolled on a OCN (open college network) course called "Build And Maintain Your PC (Level II). Although not a qualification to realy gain employment with, the course is a proper acidemic course (with Exams!). If you go to your local college they may offer something simular.
My couse is 2 hours per week (evening) for about 30 weeks.

128? That was a waste of cash. I've got 320mb. Ah well, it does sound better when you tell people.

Also Windows 98 can only use 128 megs of RAM although the newer releases of SE were supposes to support 256. I think ME only supports 256. Unless you are going to run Win2k or XP I would stick with 256 and get a faster processor (or more hard disk space).

Depends how long your PCs been on, what hidden background processes you're running, and what o/s you use. Win 9x is known for having poor memory management, it doesn't flush ram out well once it's used it, meaning that it becomes very slow after a while.

I find RAM annoying coz its unpredictable in my experience. Sometimes I can open winamp, MSN messenger and IE and Cacheman says i've no free RAM. Then again, i can open all the above, Homesite 4.5, Cuteftp, and oter apps and still have RAM free out of 128mb.

Exactly.. design Apps are a pain in the a**e. I would prolly be running some private FTP's on hotline, so the extra RAM would be cool. I got 512kb Cable modem for it aswell.

512mb of ram is somewhat pointless without win2k or something that will take advantage of it, but I regularly find myself using over 256mb when running multiple design apps. I'd rather pay £22 for an extra 256mb ram than make it swap to disk.

What purpose are you building this PC for? I noticed you were thinking of putting 512mb of RAM in but i really don't think you need that much unless your setting up a server or something. Personally I would go for an extra 200 mhz or so of processing power. Good idea about the 300w fan though - I hear Athlons get very hot. Apart from that you've got yourself a nice PC there.

Well, if you only buy parts form SR, you're restricting yourself a lot...put together that exact spec (with a 1.4ghz athlon) for £627, but not with SR parts...

1GHz or higher + AMD Athlon CPU (New motherboard aswell)
512Mb PC133 SDRAM
40GB (7200 RPM)
NVIDIA GEFORCE 2 MX-400 64MB AGP
17" digital monitor
100Mbps PCI Network Card
3½' FLOPPY DRIVE
FULL-TOWER 300W
Cables/fans etc etc

Thinking of building a low budget PC, with specs similar to this. Has anyone else done something similar to this? If so, how much did you pay for the parts in total.

Or, if anybody has any better ideas for building an excellent low budget PC. (eg. using SR products)
My budget is £600-650
We could see who comes up with the cheapest/powerful combination.
LukaZ :)