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* Max the RAM (which, IIRC, is 768M), but is getting more expensive since it's special voltage RAM for this line.

$180 don't forget - its not just voltage - its gotta be THIS ram, else its too tall for the case.

* Get a G3 CPU upgrade either new or used (G3 Upgrades are hundreds less than G4 Upgrades)

$169 for a G3/500, 300 for a G4/500 and $500 for a G4/1GHz (on a 100 mhz buss, YEAH!)

* A new video card, if you're still using onboard video. A Radeaon 9200 PCI is $80 from Compusa and probably be several orders faster than the onboard Rage Pro chip.

pffff.. okay.. i'll give you this. $80.

* Faster hard drive. If you're stuck on some old 5400RPM your perfrormance can suffer -- this goes in hand with the next thing:

$80 for your average everyday 80 gig 7200 RPM hard drive.

* New IDE controller. The onboard IDE doesn't do DMA/66/100/133 and is a real dog performance-wise. Something new can give you a surprising performance boost.

i'm sure we'll be using it not only for Photoshop, but for video editing too... so lets get ATA 133 and USB 2 and Firewire all at the same time... because i'm starting to wonder wtf all these PCI cards are going to go in a machine with only 3 slots....

$180

* Ethernet controller. If you have to push the limits, can even think about a new ethernet controller that will have less CPU utilization. ... plus, if you do this and later want to move to a slightly faster machine like a Blue&White G3 , which can be had for as little as $100 in 400mHz/0M/0M configs, the RAM and video card will carry over.

personal experience tell me this is a $20 item.

what's that all cost us bob???

$710 for a screaming G3 Frankenmac with every slot filled much like a high priced porno actress.

add $140 for a G4 500 to give you an amazing, unaccelerated, PCI based 500 megahurts piece of shit for $850 flat!

I mean - its only got a worse video card, slower bus speed, and no free 17 inch monitor when compared to a perfectly overpriced eMac.

i need to drink less dr pepper before bed.

The Chip Merchant is a very good retailer from my personal experience. I have purchased a lot of stuff from them without a problem.

Another place to check out is The Computer Geeks if you don't mind not-quite-new parts.

Keep in mind that building your own computer isn't always as easy as it seems. YOU are the tech support. When stuff goes bad, you're the one fixing them. If stuff fails, you've got to track down the manufacturer (not always easy) for warrantee claims.

I can't stand how Apple keeps on insisting that they have to do everything in house and everything proprietary... instead of using cheap, standard parts

they keep on using proprietary things like
ATA
PCI and AGP
USB
IEEE 1394
PC-100 and 133 RAM
15 pin VGA ports
1/8" audio Jacks
1000/100/10bT or 100/10bT Ethernet on every machine
PCMCIA, S-Video, and VGA outputs on thier laptops

Jeezz.. if they ever got a clue, *maybe* I could upgrade a Mac with a good gaming video card, cheap RAM, cheap IDE hard drives, use my regular PC monitor, use a cheap USB scanner, speakers and networking gear.. much less there's no way to install Windows or Linux on their computers

fuckin Apple.

I paid $49 for my 2x LS-120 drive. That's not much more than the cost of a plain ol' 1.44MB diskette drive.

When was the last time you shopped 1.44 disk drives? The Chip Merchant will sell you a 1.44 drive for $12US plus shipping.

I remember a few months ago a slashdot story about skyrocketing memory prices. Most people were doing some math and deciding it wouldn't really. Since I was planning on buying a new computer soon, I hopped onto the chip merchant's site and got 256 megs of PC133 SDRAM. It cost me $218. Now the same memory would cost me $278! Ouch. Not quite a skyrocket, but I'm glad I grabbed it early.

If you go checkout www.slota.com it will show in the motherboards section all the different kinds of motherboards for the Althon. In there you will find a mention of Tyan producing a dual Althon motherboard by the first quarter of next year. I'm waiting for the same thing. :)

Actually, the website as a whole is pretty good. But, double check AMD's website. They should have information and especially warnings about the motherboards, power supplys, and memory types.

I ended up making the mistake of grabbing a MSI motherboard and a 700 Althon for my father. MSI's website (www.slota.com has links to the manufactor's sites if available, you won't find them otherwise) advertises the motherboard for Althon's 650 and higher. This isn't the case. Currently, only the Biostar and the Gigabyte board take a 700. Just double check and everything should be ok.

BTW, if you need a place to order the motherboards. Try, www.thechipmerchant.com they are pretty reliable, have four types of Althon MBs, and they have some great support.

> The top-end iMac ($1499) features digital video editing and authoring software built-in,
> as well as FireWire (the only iMac to have it).

The $1299 models have those features as well. The extra $200 gets you 3 more GB of hard drive and a 128 MB DIMM instead of a 64 MB (or two 64 MB's, which costs $140 more on these models). And given, say, thechipmerchant's current prices, that's not a bad deal.

BTW, the notion that /.'ers aren't interested int he iMac is lame. I love my Linux (x86 and ppc) for Unix and programming, but MacOS is still way, way ahead on DTP/DV. Mix 'em and match 'em.

Now places like The Chip Merchant are charging $224 for a PC100 CAS2-latency 128MB SDRAM DIMM, and that's non-parity! Prices have jumped 30%, from around $170 a few days ago! And 512MB of PC150 (that's CAS2 latency @ 133MHz, or CAS3 latency at 150MHz) error-checking SDRAM will now cost over $1000 from STEP ThermoDynamics, at $270 per 128MB DIMM! And I can't wait until January next year to buy :( Maybe I'll buy some of it now, and the rest later. I wonder if speculation is also causing this price hike; maybe people are buying up tons of memory for some oddball reasons related to the millennium?

Looking at the Chipmerchant price list I see that the PII 450 is $547 and the PIII 450 is $550, a whopping $3 difference. In typical Intel fashion, if you go for the PIII 500 you pay $755