Hey, Let's Shoot for a Build of the Month...

You know... AMD is damning the torpedoes and going full speed ahead with their tri-core phenoms. Now for those of you not in the know the tri-cores are actually a phenom quad core with one core disabled because its defective. So you basically are buying a defective quad core... but the price... the price is right, and the mobos are modern. Lets look at this deal from the crew over at CompGeeks

CompGeeks - AMD TriCore Barebones - This has everything you need for a small form factor system... minus the case and OS. A 500 gig Hard Drive, 1 Gig of RAM, on board sound and HD video, a DVD Burner... all the SATA Cables, and basically everything you need. For 250 and some pocket change. You just can't go wrong.

Take a look at my other posts for some ideas about cases. Basically stick with Antec or Shuttle.

For an operating system I would really suggest Linux. Or an OEM copy of Windows XP PRO or Home (if you have an extra 150 to drop).

I'm going to experiment with Linux in the next couple of weeks. I plan on blogging my experience. Really, I would use Linux before Vista, no I don't hate Vista. I like vista... its a bloated resource hog though and as a gamer... sometimes old school gamer... I know everything I own works with XP so that's what I'm sticking with. Later...