What kind of system would you build?

[miadon]

erm thats terrible advice :p if they just want the net and to write letters a cheap 2nd hand one will do. I could buy a £50 machine that would do that fine.

[Radiant Memphis]

Pictured here, or...
2-3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon Quad core rules
16GB (8 x 2GB) because you can never have enough ram
4-750GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s Lot's of video and sound editing would just require it.
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB, Stereo 3D (2 x dual-link DVI) pretty, pretties
2-Apple Cinema HD Display (30" flat panel) to see pretty, pretties twice as well
2-16x SuperDrives for when you just need that other drive you wish you had.
With a finished OSX 10.5 installed.
Of course the cost is a little on the high end, but that's what you get with Mac. You get what you pay for.

:: edit :: Forgot the session would time out, so I fixed the link. Should show a pic now. Although you could also go to Mac.com and look too.
Price before taxes....16,939.00

[Xordan]

Pictured here, or...
2-3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
16GB (8 x 2GB) because you can never have enough ram
4-750GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s Lot's of video and sound editing would just require it.
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB, Stereo 3D (2 x dual-link DVI) pretty, pretties
2-Apple Cinema HD Display (30" flat panel) to see pretty, pretties twice as well
2-16x SuperDrives for when you just need that other drive you wish you had.
With the newest OSX installed.
Of course the cost is a little on the high end, but that's what you get with Mac. You get what you pay for.

How much?

[Goldir]

Dang.  That looks like the kind of system you would put in as a control system on a space shuttle or one of those that physicists use to calculate the motion of the heavenly bodies or some crap.  I would say that it looks like the kind that NASA would use, but NASA would pay $34000 for the hardware and it would probably be a 5 year old 500 mhz AMD system purchased through Raytheon or one of those companies via a 30 year service contract.  Oh yeah and the OS would most likely be NT, with millions of dollars in non-functioning custom software.

[Radiant Memphis]

Nah it's the newest g5 custom set up set up for mac I was playing with. Go here to check them out.  Although, unless it's changed most of NASA comps. are linux or at least based on it if I remember correctly.

[lordraleigh]

Well do not know how to play chess, so perhaps I could be the "coach" owning a system like this one: 



Easier to drive a nail with a wrecking ball!

----

Seriously, I would go definitively for 64 bits processor(3.5 Ghz or more, not sure if AMD or Intel yet),. 2.5 GB (575Mhz frequency if existing) RAM, a GeForce 8800("GeForce 8800 GTX will contain a G80 running at 575MHz and connected over a 384-bit bus to 768MB of GDDR 3 clocked to 900MHz. That's enough for 86GBps of memory bandwidth."), a 1 Terabyte HD with the best speed available, a plasma 50'' flat monitor. Fully updated Debian with the latest versions of KDE and other softwares, and a *cough* Window$ XP(Vista seems to be a even worse resource hog) cause of those that refuse to port their programs and games to Linux.

[derwoodly]

Oie Vay!

Quadcore??? http://techreport.com/etc/2006q4/clovertown/index.x?pg=1  Why oh why?

A $608.72 USD (including tax) HP Pavilion runs PS and compiles C. 
A 8800 GTX Graphic card will do nothing for compiling C and will set you wallet back $600 bucks. Integrated graphics are fast enough for PS.

Finacing??? Its a computer, not a car.  Put 50 bucks in a jar every month, then pay cash for it.

[emeraldfool]

Lord... I hate you so very much

[chazarus]

ONe pie e of advice if you get your computer from dell ...
Immediately format and reinstall windows.
They jam them things so full crap software it's ridiculous.