New computer

[Rootstonian]

Get a pre-built. One shop, one warranty. I've built in the past (lots of builds)

I went out last week and got a Gateway 5678, 6600 Quad Core, 4 Gig RAM, Vista 64-bit Home Premium, 750 Gig HD, ATI 2400 XT video, DVD RW/CD RW and media card bay. $850 plus tax.

I'll wait a bit and probably extend the warranty through Gateway vs. Best Buy's markup on it

And besides the video card, I consider this a very high-end machine ; your friend could probably get by with less. Hell the Phenom Quad was $100 less...the AMD Tri-Core $200 less