Originally posted by Jeremy
the only dvd software i've seen is encarta. most games will ship on cds because not many people actually have dvd-rom, and therefore would be a losing cause for the developers.
you need well over 300 watts of power. my desktop below is running on 320 watts and is barely hanging on because adding anything incl. a faster chip or vid card creates problems.
consider a standard atx board. it is amazing how quickly you can use up slots.
getting 1GB is not really necessary. get a single stick of 512 and if you need more later, then get it.
don't get any nvidia stuff for awhile (even though i'm an nvidia fan). the fx's are rather bad.
get intel. for the systems i've heard, it's like comparing a dirt devil to a ceiling fan.
a few points
as i noted above there is no reason not to own a dvd player on your computer these days, the drive is friggin $32, thats cheap yo
instead of 1 512 as you have indicated i would go for 2 256 modules, so that he can run in dual channel mode
and on the intel it is an increadible value, get a 2.4C and clock it to 3GHz with a 1GHz FSB, you'd have a whole lotta mem bandwidth and a top of the line CPU speed for what is out there right now
