>I buy about six computers a year, and I agree wholeheartedly with your decision to go AMD. Far superior to Intel in my opinion, and completely reliable.
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>I don't know your area, but there must be one or more local vendors who will custom build a machine for you. I have had very good luck going that route and I get exactly what I want for very few (if any) dollars more than buying from the Bigs (Dell, Gateway, etc.)
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>The advantages of dealing locally are (1) you can negotiate the deal you want (2) you get support within driving distance, and (3) the local guy will transfer whatever's on you hard disk to the new machine and (5) a local bank will probably finance or lease it if you don't want to pay cash. (Cash? Wassat?).
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>The drawback is that you have to do some research to determine which components you want to buy and probably will have to wait until the local guy can get them, but, that's not too much penalty imho.

We just ordered 2 computers for $926 each (No hard drive). ABIT KT7 Motherboard ($178), AMD THUNDERBIRD 1.2 GB & FAN ($278), 512 MegPC133 ($275), MidTower case ($52) AGP-8meg ($45), and a 48XCD, keyboard, mouse, 1.44 floppy. This is from a local clone shop that we have been buying from for more than 10 years. These are our first AMD units. I got a good recommendation for this stuff. I have only bought 100% Intel in the past. I would appreciate any negative comments asap (we are supposed to pick it up in 2 days).