OK OK Uppy -- you do know the UK market much better than I




That's why we have you guys... I will defer from now on

My response to two hard drives, if you plan on having a lot of junk, then get two. If you work on videos, definatly get two. If your just wanting it to have it, hey you have that right.
I would get two DVD drives though, it has come in handy from time to time.

Thanks for all your replys!

After discussing further with my parents, regarding the budget etc etc...I've been messing around with various rigs and seem to have come up with one that sounds ok. I still need a case (preferably with PSU), maybe some extra cooling, and a floppy drive (could come in handy, I know I'll probably need one in the future for something) Anyway, list looks like this now...

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+
Gigabyte GA M57SLI-S4 SKT AM2 Nvidia MCP55P PCI-E 8Channel audio ATX
OCZ 1Gb DDR2 PC2-4200 Gold GX XTC Dual Channel
Western Digital WD2500KS Caviar SE 250GB 7200RPM SATAII/300 16MB Cache
Asus ATI X1600Pro 512MB PCI-E
Samsung SH-S183A/BEBN Black SATA 18x18 ±R Dual Layer DVDRW Writer
Belinea 1925S1W 19" Widescreen TFT Monitor

That's almost a full system. Any recommendations welcomed.

Can you list prices or links so we can help you pick the best deal better?

Yep sure.

CPU: £60.20 inc VAT

BOARD: £65.09 Inc. VAT

RAM: £72.98 inc VAT

HDD: £46.16 inc VAT

VIDEO CARD: £65.42 inc VAT

DVDRW DRIVE: £21.50 Inc VAT

MONITOR: £119.98 inc VAT

Note that every item on this list £50 or over, I get free shipping ( from Ebuyer). The DVD drive is from Scan.co.uk, everything else is Ebuyer. Also, what do you think I should do, stick with the ATI X1600 Pro, or save myself £25 and go with the XFX GeForce 7300GS? It seems a competent card, reports of running HL2, Fear, Oblivion etc etc, very smoothly on high settings, even on less powerful systems.

I would try and squeeze an Intel Core2Duo into your budget instead of the AMD, need a different motherboard too. The core2duo E6300 will blow that AMD away.