My wife's computer kept locking up on her and getting hot, so I ordered the parts for a new computer and gave her the one I was using. She had an old Intel Pentium 4 running at 2Ghz. That's not a bad CPU for office stuff, but it was getting some age to it. I upgraded her to an AMD X2-3800, which is an AMD Dual Core CPU running at 2.4Ghz. Dual Core means that there are actually 2 CPU's running on the same chip. It allows you to do alot more things at one time and it doesn't slow your computer down. Usually, I have found AMD to be far better than Intel in alot of ways. Intel has their good points, but in my opinion, AMD is hands down the way to go. My new system is an AMD X2-6000 Dual Core, running at 3.0Ghz. It may not look alot faster, but it really is. It has 2Gig of memory, 2-160Gig Hard Drives. One hard drive is for Windows XP and the other is my backup drive for my music and movies. I am current using an Nvidia 7900GS video card which does a good job with most graphics applications like games and photo editing. I am looking at getting a second one for about $30 which will give me a SLI graphics computer. SLI means the 2 video cards are actually linked together to really help with games and graphics intensive applications, as long as they support SLI. I'll see how they work together. My main computer board is an Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe. I usually buy all of my computer parts at Newegg.com as they usually have the best prices and they have the shortest shipping times. Whenever you are building your own computer, just make sure everything is compatible with each other and take your time doing it. Do plenty of research and just have fun. Always remember that computer components are sensitive to static, so always touch something metal BEFORE touching them. I am posting a pic of my main board so you can see what I got.
