I will have the time, I plan on doing this just before summer vacation, and I should have a budget between $2,800 and $3,200. But... I want a
Athalon (what is the best motherboard right now?), 1.3ghz, 256-384 megs (DDRam?), GForce 3 (if tests show it to be worth it), 19" profesional monitor, and a sound card that will let me set up dolby digital suround sound speakers. I am also looking into 2 hard drives, a 10gig and 50-70gig 7200 Ultra ATA100. So.... that is a lot of expensive stuff... and if I build it, then I got to get the case, power supply, fans and cooling units or whatever, the wires and all, and I wouldnt know EXACTLY what to do.
I have build an old 486 from scratch, but I have an idea this would be a LITTLE bit harder. I have also fooled around a little bit with my P1, 233 mhz, but like I said, I didnt know what I was doing exactly (meaning i didnt know what the wires were, just put them back whare they belonged.) So I think I would be able to build a system with the help of friends and boards like this. But if Alienware could use the parts I wanted, I would mb just go with them. If any one has an Alienware system, how does it run?... and are the parts all good and upgradeable and all that stuff?