Just for fun, new system for <$1000us. Choice picks?

[Vigilante]

Hey, I'm going to be putting together a PC for my brother pretty soon. I'd like to stay under $1000, including an LCD, hopefully 17". Keyboard/mouse/speakers. Speakers are 2.1 and good sounding. At least 1280x1024 res on LCD. And keyboard is standard style, nothing fancy, mouse is optical.
Color scheme is black/silver or just black.
I want a 939 Athlon with PCI-E. A good sort of desk case and name brand PS. Not like a gamers case or fancy light up. Don't even really want a side window. Just a classy case is all, and about 18" tall. 17" is getting short.
It's not a gamers PC so video doesn't need to be top knotch. But they will do video editing so it needs at least a 120gb HDD or 160gb is better. And front firewire on the case. And top it off with a single DVD burner and floppy.

So what do you think? I don't need direct links to parts, I shop at newegg and zipzoomfly. But offhand why don't you list your fav parts, I'll look them up myself. Or if you recently bought a part and really like it, post your comments. Again, I don't need top of the line, just good, long lasting, hard working components.

Thanks.

 

[Vigilante]

Whoa, nobody interresting in playing?

Well I will probably be needing to build this system within the next week or two. So now would be a good time to see if I could put together a system for $1k. Take away $300 for a 19" LCD, and the PC budget is about $700. What do you suppose?

I already put together a system on NE. Here is what I came up with thus far:
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MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail - $129

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz FSB 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor - Retail - $190

CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - Retail - $123

MSI RX800-TD128E Radeon X800 128MB 256-bit DDR PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail - $149.99

COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-WBC Black/Blue Aluminum Bezel, SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 380W Power Supply - Retail - $84.99

Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM - $84.50

NEC Black 16X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 16X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2M Cache IDE DVD Burner - OEM - $39.45

ViewSonic VA702b Black 17" 12ms LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 500:1 0.264mm Pixel Pitch - Retail - $229.99

Creative I-TRIGUE 2.1 3200 35 Watts RMS 2.1 Speaker - Retail - $65

Microsoft CA9-00001 Black 103 Normal Keys 3 Function Keys PS/2 Wired Standard Keyboard Mouse Included - OEM - $28.99

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This bid is a week or so old. Where do you think I could save some money? Or get better for same price?
So it's about $1125. Not even including software and shipping. I'd like to keep this thing under 1k just for the raw parts.

What say you?

 

[vnf4ultra]

If you're looking to cut costs, look at the vnf4/ultra motherboard.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813152049
$82.50 shipped, also nforce4 ultra.

Here's a 3200+ for $131, but it's oem, so you'd need a heatsink, so the price w/ heatsink would be like $165, so it's still cheaper.
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=A64-3200BW

Here's a cpu cooler. $33
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118112


Here's some good but cheaper ram. $99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231012

So that'd save about $100 I guess.

 

[Vigilante]

Hmm, I wonder why you'd recommend that board? lol

I'd rather not go OEM on the CPU, for warranty's sake.

And I'm always cautious about RAM, I like to get about "middle" quality. Not the cheapest, and not the best either. A matched pair from Corsair. Hey, at least it rhymes.

The system won't be used for games at all, the most intense thing may be video editing, burning, home movies. But they will do DVDs and video input and lots of publishing. I'd rather have reliable but not as fast, versus super fast but not reliable. I want a workhorse PC that is stable.
I suppose the biggest place to save money would be video and CPU. And a few more bucks on the mobo. Though I like MSI and am familiar with the company and their policies and products.

Will look in to your suggestions. thx