I would like someone's advice on a good retailer who sells barebones systems. I've checked Pricewatch and Resellerratings, but I'd like the AT opinion.
I want to get a barebones system for under $300.00. With what I want, if anyone has ideas, please let me know!
Athlon XP 2100 (seems to be a good chip for the price)
Reliable Motherboard that supports USB 2.0, has at least 4 or 5 PCI slots, an AGP slot, and accepts DDR memory. Built in sound is nice, but not necessary because I'll eventually buy a sound card anyway. Since I really don't know much about motherboards, any advice here would be great. By the way, when a motherboard has built in LAN, does that just mean that there's an ethernet port near all of the speaker ports? Does this affect performance in any way?
AGP 64MB Video Card with S-video out.
Decent case - doesn't have to be flashy, but room for a DVD-ROM, CD-RW, and a possible extra hard drive.
Cooling Fans
Modem - not necessary, but if available for 10-20 bucks, it'd be a nice addition. No Winmodems, though.
Ethernet card - if not already on the motherboard
1 year warranty
I don't plan to overclock this machine. In fact, the main reason I want it is to run MAME and The SIMS. All other programs are nice bonuses. I already have a 40GB Maxtor hard drive, a copy of RH Linux 8, Mandrake 9, and Windows 98SE, 1GB of DDR 2100 memory from Buy.com (crosses fingers), a DVD-ROM, a SCSI CD-R, keyboard, mouse, monitor, and speakers.
Am I dreaming, or can I get a system like this for under $300 from a reliable company? All help is much appreciated!
Thanks!