The "current top dog" CPU is generally pricey, but the "2nd dog" is usually a real bargain.
[b]* get the fastest CPU you can afford[/b]
With the latest round of CPU price-cuts...An Athlon 1.4GHZ is only about $40 more than an Athlon 900MHz. On top of that, the Athlon 1.4GHz is comparable to the 1.8GHz Pentium 4's (which are pricier). While the CPU itself is easy to upgrade later, chances are, you'd need to upgrade the motherboard as well which is tough.
[b]* get the biggest hard drive you can afford[/b]
Just like CPU's, if you look at the prices of hard drives you'll find among the different sizes there are just a couple dollars difference in price until you reach a point where the prices jump up. For example:
10GB - $79
20GB - $89
30GB - $109
40GB - $119
60GB - $189
The "sweet spot" is at the 40GB mark right now (it will change). A 7200rpm drive is generally faster and a twin-drive RAID 0 setup is very fast...but I'd guess that most users don't notice and are happy with a 5400rpm drive. Hard drives are also quite involved to "upgrade" so get the best you can now.
[b]* a ton of memory lets the system run full speed[/b]
A friend has an Athlon 800 with 128MB of memory. It's pretty speedy. Memory's so cheap these days, she bought another 256MB of memory making 384MB of memory. [i]It made a very noticable difference in speed![/i] Unlike the CPU/motherboard or hard drive, memory is very easy to add later.
[b]* for gaming a specialized video card makes all the difference[/b]
The current "top dog" I'd say is the GeForce 3, but some real bargains are to be had with the GeForce 2 series. Current games run great with 32MB of memory on the video card, but for games coming out this next year, you'll want a video card with 64MB of memory on it. Video cards are easier to "upgrade later" if you needed to.
That's the basics, other things such as keyboard, mouse, etc. can be a personal preference. And add-on peripherals such as digital camera, scanner, printer, etc. can also be handy. Though I can't seem to live without my printer, scanner and CD-writer these days.
- Robbie