Current Cost of Memory: $82 * 2 = $164
Months on List: 2
Price Change: +$12

With a $12 jump in RDRAM pricing compared to last month, you're starting to see why we saved a few bucks by using the retail Pentium 4 HSF. We are still taking the system up to a full 512-MB of memory, since this is the point where Win 2000 Pro really starts to cook. Since the i850 requires a dual-RIMM installation, we're sticking with the 2x256-MB option. Although we do spend a few more bucks than going 4x128-MB, you still have 2 RIMM sockets free for future upgrades.

Current Cost of Memory: $72 (registered $102)
Months on List: New
Price Change: N/A

The price difference between going the single-512-MB route compared to 2x256-MB is only $5, but it allows a bit more memory upgrade latitude in the future. Adding DDR memory later on is an extremely easy upgrade, especially with the 4 DIMM sockets on the ABIT KG7-RAID motherboard. Just be sure to buy registered DIMMs (at a $30 price premium over standard 512-MB modules) if using all 4 sockets is in the cards. With the Athlon XP sneaking up to the Pentium 4 pricing, the DDR memory portion is the main area of cost savings for our AMD system. The difference between 512-MB of DDR vs. RDRAM memory is still significant (just under $100) and does allow us a bonus feature a bit later on.

Current Cost of Disk: $146
Months on List: 3
Price Change: -$4
Company Web Site: www.ibm.com

With a hard drive, it is important to get the best combination of price, performance, and long-term reliability. A drive needs a good mix of the above features and thankfully the IBM 60GXP 60GB is just the hardware for the job. This 60 GB behemoth has an 8.5ms seek time and a 2MB cache, it features just about everything the computer enthusiast needs for PC system storage. We would like to move a bit higher on the GB ladder, but until we get more data on the newer IBM 75GXP 75GB's overall reliability, we're sticking with the time-tested IBM 60GXP 60GB.