In my case, I am basing the system on the AMD Athlon XP2000+ and have a total budget that is very tight ($700 including ALL shipping and handling fees)
System MUST have:
* At least 128Mb DDR SDRAM
* DVD ROM drive
* CD writer
* AGP 2x (or 4x) video, 32-64Mb onboard, major chipset
* Sound card w/high performance at low cost
30-60Gb 7200rpm UDMA/100 or UDMA/133 HDD
And enough cooling to keep everything cool even if room temp gets to 80+?F!
Keyboard and optical wheelmouse would be nice, too.