CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2500+ ---It's about the best value. OEM means it's just the CPU, retail comes with a stock heatsink and fan, but you'll find you can get better cooling with a 3rd party cooler. On the other hand, the retail CPU comes with a 3 year warranty from AMD, whereas the OEM part will only come with a 30-day warranty from Newegg (and most on-line retailers).
Memory--512MB PC3200 (also DDR400). Go with Kingston, Corsair, Crucial, Mushkin or Geil. You can buy faster DDR, but no AMD chip can take advantage of it at stock speeds. You may want to consider 1GB, but don't get anything less than 512MB.
Motherboard---Currently, the nForce 2 Ultra 400 is the top of the line Socket A chipset. If it is paired with MCP-T, you also have solid on-board sound, firewire, and on-board LAN. If it's just paired with the MCP, you only have on-board LAN---although at least 90% of motheboards do. I personally run Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe which has the MCP-T on it. The other pick you'll see is the Abit NF7-S (do not get the -S2 or -S2G).
I would avoid Epox and DFI as they seem to have some quality control issues.
Graphics card--For $200, you can get a Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB card, and this is the bare minimum you want to have. If you can swing it, going with the GeForce 6800 or 6800GT would be a real good move, especially when it comes to D00M 3.
Hard Drive--Western Digital or Seagate 80GB or better. Serial ATA (SATA) would be a good move, but make sure the motherboard supports it. Many do, like the Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe and the Abit NF7-S (the plain NF7 does not have SATA).
Optical drive--I'd go with Samsung. For me, they've been some of the most solid drives, and really never given me trouble. Next up would be Toshiba. I would suggest having a DVD-ROM at the very least, since it can read CD-ROMs as well, and some software is starting to be available on DVD-ROM.
Power supply--Don't go cheap here. $25 for a 500W power supply isn't likely to give you a good unit. At the very least get a 350W unit, but I would highly suggest looking into a 450W unit. Get Antec (the TruPower line), Sparkle or Fortron units.
Sound card--Depending on how much of an audiophile you are, you may or may not want an extra sound card. Personally, I've found Creative's Live! and Audigy cards to be much ado about nothing, and onboard sound these days isn't too bad, especially with the nForce 2 boards sporting the MCP-T.
Floppy drive---generally not much use, but you will need it to install Windows on an SATA drive.
OS---Windows XP Home runs for $89. I wouldn't use anything less than Windows 2000, either.
Mouse/Keyboard. Logitech or Microsoft. Make sure you get an optical mouse. Anymore, these are worth the cost. If you want wireless, Logitech MX series of wireless units is supposedly pretty good, but they are heavier due to the internal battery.
CPU heatsink--Thermalright or ThermalTake units are some of the best you can buy. Most Thermalright heatsinks do not come with a fan, so you will need to get one. 80mm fans are the standard more or less these days.
Case---With the cost of shipping, you may want to jog by a local shop and see what they have. Other than that, what ever floats your boat. Antec, Cooler Master, and Thermaltake (the Tsunami series, unless you like the ricer Xaser cases) are good. Lian Li's are nice too, but I tend to cringe at cases costing $200.
Monitor---this is another thing I would go and look at before you buy. Most places charge shipping on these as well. I would get a flat CRT monitor of at least 17" but you should be able to find a good 19" for a reasonable price too.
