Well, the last time I wrote, I was adament I was going for AMD due to price. But, having had much time to think about it, I've decided to go to Intel. So why the flip in decision? Well I already own a P4, and I'm basing my decision on the fact that I most likely rely on HyperThreading...a feature most expensive in the AMD realm, and therefore, I'm sticking with Intel. OK, so AMD's dual core is probably much much more effective than Intel, but works out too expensive for my liking.

So, Intel you say? I do indeed. So, Socket LGA775 is the way forward, and I'm going for the Intel 955X chipset. I'm not actually buying a faster CPU, the same in fact but just LGA775. LGA775, if you don't know, stands for Land Grid Array, and has 775 contacts on the CPU - with the pins on the motherboard. I believe this allows for transfer at a higher rate at a cooler temperature or something like that.. :)

So, I'm going for an Intel Pentium 4 530J "LGA775 Prescott" 3.0GHz (800FSB) with an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 CPU Cooler (Socket 775), with an Abit AW8-MAX Intel 955X (LGA775) PCI-Express Motherboard. I'll be getting Crucial 1GB (2x512MB) DDR2 PC5300 667MHz Ballistix Dual Channel Kit.

I'll be adding a little 3D power, but not too much. My theory is, get onto PCI-E now, and a reasonable card, and upgrade later. Since I can't just buy a PCI-E graphics card at the moment. So, I'll be getting an ATI Radeon X700 Pro 128MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) for the graphics card.

I'll be going for SATAII, which is (obviously) faster than SATA...I'll be getting a Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 200GB 2000JS SATA-II 8MB Cache.

To complete the system I have decided to splash out a little bit, and get a modular power supply. They look most cool, as well as saving lots of horrible cables all over the place. The one I'll be getting is Hiper HPU-4B580 Type R 580W Modular - a nice Blue colour :)

All in all, that'll be costing me £632.92. I'll do a run through of those seperate hardware bits and reason for choice in a later article, now however, is time for bed for me :)