Build your own hardware

I'm not much of a hardware person, having just a basic understanding of the components that go together to make a PC.
It was therefore with some trepidation and not a little recourse to Tom's Hardware, that I set off to one of the PC malls in Bangkok where people go to get their PCs.
In Thailand there is a culture of buying the individual pieces and then having someone put them together for you.
I had had a bit of trouble in the past, where the components I chose decided not to work together all the time (hard crash every time I tried to answer a call in Skype).
This time I was going for an expandable system, but powerful enough to run all my bloated MS software, while my old system becomes my Linux server.
I also like the odd game every now and then, so it had to be reasonable on the graphic front.
I went for the following components:

• MSI K8N Platinum SLI socket 939 AMD Motherboard with SATA RAID, Gigabit ethernet, sound, etc
• Winfast Nvidia PX6600 GT/TDH 128MB
• AMD Athlon 64 bit 3000+ Clawhammer processor
• 1GB Kingston PC3200 400 RAM
• 80GB Seagate 7200 SATA drive

Works fantastic!
Everything flies along, and I got the minimum processor!
I can upgrade to a Dual Core on the 939 socket, and several GB RAM, add another Graphic card using the SLI bridge and I can get 4 drives in a RAID configuration using the hardware RAID controller (e.g. 4 x 250GB SATA drives, giving 0.5 terrabytes of RAID 1+0).
Total cost: 28000 THB, or $700!

I already bought my 19" LCD (Phillips) almost a year ago for $500 (now $350).

Of course, in Thailand, quality seals are invariably broken and packages look like the dog ate them, but somehow it generally works. I've lost count of the number of times when you go to a shop in Thailand and they only have the display model left - there are no discounts for wear or damaged packaging, but then again, they will usually take things back in an obviously used state!

So, no more excuses for lack of blogging or calling people on Skype (or Gtalk or Gizmo or Yahoo or MSN)...except...

The unfortunate side effect is that the PC is powerful enough to run Civ4, and what with the new baby, Civ4 and trying to develop code/presentations etc, sleep and blogging are coming quite low down the priority list!

I'd post a photo, but it's too horrible!