There are two things bothering me. Plus the power supply thing. I'll explain them below...


Motherboard - I don't like recomending the VIA chipset. Some people swear by it, but I'd like to point you in the direction of Nforce2. http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...127-166&depa=1 With this, you don't need another sound card, simply because nothing on the market can match the Sound Storm's capabilities. It is pretty much the only hardware implementation of Dolby 5.1 Digital Encoding. Everything else bums power off of the CPU for the 3D sound calculations -- this rocks the socks off compared to them.

Processor - I don't want to make you have to overclock. But I don't like the price premium with the faster AthlonXP processors. I'll warn you that if you don't use an AMD Retail heatsink, you get no warrenty from AMD. If you overclock, warrenty void. If you don't get a retail processor (PIB, Processor in a box w/ heatsink, etc) then it is an OEM product w/ essentially no warrenty, and you have to rely on customer support from where you bought it. That said, you can get the 333MHz 2500+ Barton or anything else. Be wary of uber-cheap 3200+ Bartons because it isn't uncommon for them to simply be remarked 2500+ Bartons, just overclocked and resold. But if they work without dying anytime soon, you may have saved some money...

Power Supply - Check the link from the last thread. I'd recommend a quality power supply of at least 430 watts (Antec True 430?). This should give you enough room to grow as long as you don't get something as power hungry like the FX6800 or Radeon X800 video cards. Although it might run those...not exactly sure though. Check out http://takaman.jp/D/index.html?english and tell it what hardware you have, and it will give you some numbers to work with. (+12v AMPs is important, Wattage is also relevant)


So...going by the list above, you can get rid of that cheap SoundBlaster 16 card if you get that motherboard. That card is pointless if the motherboard has onboard audio. (The Soyo doesn't even need that SoundBlaster 16) At the very least, you can knock off that $15 sound card, so yeah... Enjoy.