Alan...

Just looking through this thread and I'll make a recommendation that I haven't seen yet: probably the most significant performance area you should concentrate on is the video card, which not only controls the speed of screen loads, but also the maximum resolution of the output to your monitor. It would be a shame to buy a nice 19" or 21" monitor that has 1920x1440 or 2048x1536 resolution capability and settle for a video card that supports only 1024x768.

The benefit of buying a top-end video card, a GeForce 64mb, for example, will manifest itself to a fairly large extent when simply cruising the internet, and to a HUGE extent if you want to watch DVD's on your new computer (you ARE getting a DVD-Rom drive, aren't you???), or if you play games on your computer.

And... 3-D applications (other than games) are coming soon, which is another place where your video card will become critical.

Don't skimp here!

And, if you'd like a general dealer recommendation, take a look at ABS Computers at www.buyabs.com ... I LOVE their configurations, and they win LOTS of awards, too.

...Jay