hey all
i have been really busy for a long time and hardware has changed so much in the meantime. i’d really like to get reaquainted with the trends and general ideas. so if anyone has a little time to re-educate me because i need to build several boxes soon.
SO! the questions at hand. what is the price for performance spot at the minute? what is your basic middle of the range box that is giving the best bang for your buck. this is very general i know… but generally? 
Budget system you mean? Well, i’d go for this:
AMD X2 5600+ 2.8 Ghz processor
GIGABYTE MA69GM-S2H AMD 690G+SB600 motherboard
Corsair DDR2 2GB DDR800 XMS2-6400 matched pair, with Heat Spread
CORSAIR 520W PSU
(Don’t know which case)
Samsung HD250HJ, 250GB, 7200rpm, 8MB, FDB, SATA II
DVD-RW Pioneer DVR-212
Gigabyte 8800GT
======================================
Intel system:
Intel Pentium Dual Core E2180 2.00 GHz (800MHz 1MB) Box
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3P motherboard
Scythe NINJA Cpu cooler
other parts remain the same as above
Right now I would stick with an intel system to tell you the truth. For value/performance it is the top. For a complete budget build you can get a Pentium Dual Core 1.6 Gig that will overclock to 3+ Gigs. It has a lower L2 Cache though, so if you are going for gaming you are going to want to get a Core2Duo and overclock that. If you are an AMD fan go with an AMD Black Edition processor with the unlocked multipliers.
Really any mobo with a p35 chipset would do you well unless you want to run dual video cards in SLI. Then you would need a 680i chipset for top performance. As always I recommend Gigabyte boards as they manufactor the highest quality boards in my opinion.
As far as video cards go, right now the new 8800 GT 512 is by FAR the best bang for your buck. It benchmarks just bellow the 8800 GTX and will soon cost only 200-250. Only problem is that these babies sell out fast.
As far as harddrives go - for highest performance you will want either a Raptor (or equivelant) or one of the new 7200.11 HDDs.
This is all off the top of my head and it’s early, so correct me if I’m wrong anywhere.
E2180 can reach almost 3,6 + ghz (some of them even 4 ghz)
True, but notice I said budget and for most people a liquid cooling system would not be considered budget. Even a high quality HSF will run you 60-100 USD. So under budget cooling I would only recommend overclocking to 3.0-3.2
I’m building an E2180 + GA-P35C-DS3P system, seems to be the best bang/buck at this time 
The P35C model supports DDR3 RAM.
DDR3 = Opposite of bang for your buck…:doh:
Not really. It supports both DDR2 and DDR3. The board is well priced at around £75 and its also futureproof.
The gain you get from DDR3 is so absolutely minimal it’s laughable. I beleive the synthetics showed a 2% increase in performance from DDR2 to DDR3. Yet the prices for DDR3 are yet to fall. The one thing I do like about DDR3 is that it can have a thermo sensor to watch for overheating. Very nice. 