I've never ventured outside the hot deals forum....where do I look at anandtech?
I did build a sweet machine for my mom from AT deals a few months ago. but it was a shot in the dark as far as what I was getting into for a mother board. For my own machine, I want to make sure I get the best value.
You should see my mom. She's almost 70 years old and had a 4GB hard drive. When she got it half full, she started freaking out, worried she was going to run out of space. Good lord mom, relax! Anyway, she finally decided to buy a new PC. What she was looking at (or more accurately, what the Best Buy dood told her to buy) was about $1400. I built her a better machine for under $400, using AT deals and scavenging her old PC. She about crapped her pants when she saw she had over 72GB free on her 80GB hard drive. (note to self: bring over Depends next time I visit mom). She's one happy lady now, I tell ya. I made the mistake of putting Photoshop elements on her machine now, and now she's lost trying to figure out how to tweak old geneology photos. I have to say one thing about mom though, she's not afraid to get in there and try stuff out on the PC. I've bailed her butt out a few times! Finally had to put VNC on her machine so I can remotely fix her screwups. Now the next project is to get her on DSL so I can fix them faster.
but I digress.....