hardware questions
I'm looking at putting together an Athlon 64 system. The emphasis is on 'budget', rather than 'performance at any price', but I don't want it to be a total dog. I'm less worried about trying to future proof it, in my experience it's never worked before and i've always ended up junking the supposedly 'future proof' motherboard etc.
I know roughly what I want: Athlon 64 3000+, decent but not outstanding graphics card, 1 gig memory, 250Mb disk, all from good manufacturers (no half-tested drivers or flakey hardware, i'd like it to be reliable), but I'm lost when it comes to details:
* is there any practical benefit over s939 when compared to the older s758? s758 seems cheaper.
* likewise, is it worth going for a PCI-express system (I guess this means s939)? I was thinking of a ATI 9800 graphics card, but the new X700 cards seem a similar price (I don't want to spend the money for an X800). Which is better?
-- and can you recommend particular motherboards and graphics cards, there seem lots to pick from, how do I know which is best?
* I'm lost when it comes to memory speeds, PCxxxx, dual-channels and FSB speeds. What memory do I need?
* SATA? i'm not quite sure what that is, but I'd quite like to run a RAID-0 (i.e. mirrored) config and it seems to have some relevance.
* what sort of power supply would I need for the above?
* and what cooling? is the heatsink alone sufficient? I'm not interested in overclocking, but would like cool and quiet.
Finally, i'm a UK resident but i'd like to get most of the above when i'm next in the USA (will probably get the case and PSU in the UK). Any suggestions for a good retailer?
That's quite a list, so thanks for any thoughts. Maybe 'PC on a budget' should be a FAQ?
Will.