Sir VG's Computer Project 2006

Seeing how the price is below $300, I'd suggest picking up an Athlon X2 3800+. It's great for multitasking, encoding and future use on the Vista OS (if you decide to upgrade). Also the Corsair Value RAM is great for the price. You can snag 1GB (2x512MB PC-3200 DDR) for ~$70 last time I checked.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

For the ultra cheap (but still able to run Quake 4) video card, go with a 7300GS or an ATI Radeon x1300. Both are under $100 and can give you 40fps on Quake 4 under the right conditions (the biggest condition being 800x600 resolution). I recommended the Corsair Value RAM becuase it's $68.99 and has five stars out of nearly 1200 (!) reviews.
It can be found and bought here.
Just think 2GB for only $138!

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Sir VG

Luckily I'm not playing Quake 4. The biggest concern is data transfer, storage, and temperature (for reliability). Most of my gaming is emulation at this point, so usually my most intense gaming is on ePSXe. I might go back to Neverwinter Nights sometime or Unreal Tournament, but I also want to check out the new hardware, as this is my business.

The Radeon x1300 would do fine for you (or a x1600) both ATI cards offer H.264 accelerated decoing for the new HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs. The x1300 runs a lot more quietly and cooler than the faster video cards too. Your money would be better spent on a good CPU, emulation depends much more on CPU speed than Video Card performance (even on newer emulators).

Originally Posted by Fyodor D.

Go SCSI and you will NEVER turn back.

SCSI (and ATA) is a dying format. SATA and SAS (SAS is the heir to SCSI) are much better choices in the long run and most motherboards still have a few ATA ports anyways.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Metal Sphere

If you're going to use this computer to see Blu-Ray or HD-DVDs, I suggest you wait. Videocards need a certain physical HDCP cheap on them, and as of yet, none have it. You wouldn't be able to watch copyrighted flicks.

BTW, you would also need a compliant monitor.

It's not just Blu-Ray and HD-DVD that will use H.264, eventually both legal and illegal downloadable videos will use H.264 instead of the standard DivX or Xvid to produce DVD quality video at a much smaller size. Currently without H.264 acceleration, a top of the line system can barely decode high definition H.264, it wastes CPU cycles and power to decode H.264 the old fashined way when your video card can help (it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect to have H.264 decoding on a video card lighten the load by well over half of what your CPU normally takes on).

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Metal Sphere

Oh, I know this already. The benefits that it brings are great, and it allows less capable systems the ability to play HD videos without whoring system resources. The thing is, even if it's encoded with H.264 without the HDCP chip on the video card and in the monitor, you won't be able to watch copyrighted HD streams since they'll be downgraded to 480p automatically.

Not a problem if you don't intend on watching them in the first place, but it's something to keep in mind.

VG, don't worry about the consoles. When they come around, just use component since you only need the HDCP crap for the BR movies.

So what have we got so far?

Actually from what I've heard it will be downgraded to 540p in the case of Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs, which is 960x540 (1/4 the size of 1920x1080). That's better than DVD and will be much smaller than the full 1080p. Unlike with DVDs transcoding H.264 won't work well, because simply there isn't a format better than H.264 right now.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Metal Sphere

540p sound highly unlikely considering that they'd likely adopt one resolution that can be displayed across the board should the player find that the TV isn't HDCP compliant, or vice versa. It's as simple as this:

HDCP on both ends of the copyrighted data? It'll be output in whatever HD resolution it was set to be.

Lack of HDCP compliance on either the player end or monitor will cause it to default to standard DVD resolution. Throwing in 540p would just complicate things.

I've heard that from CPU Magazine, a very reliable source with tech industry professionals who know what they're talking about. Check this article for a 2nd opionion. Of course who even uses the full 720x480 resolution on DVD rips anyways? I'm lucky to find a DivX/XviD rip that looks good at 640x480.
Bottom line, though the x1300 is good for gaming and great for multimedia. Just don't expect to play every game at 1600x1200 and you'll be happy.

How ya doing, buddy?