Personally I think when your on a budget like that spending 50 bucks on a sound card is a little too much and you can always upgrade the sound later. It's not the old days where if you don't buy a sound card you don't get sound.
I also think the prices for the optical drive, powersupply and case are a little high.
Should be able to find a dvdr for about 30 bucks on sale or with a redate, don't need to go for some high end pioneer or sony just a generic.
As for the powersupply and case wow that's alot to spend on a budget, 17% of your money just for a case and P/S? With that setup you wouldn't need the 550W anyways. (Good choice sure but you don't need it... I'm guessing this is part of the starting point? If so good choice.)
The drive is decent but I'd get a raptor 10K drive even if it cost more.
1G of memory... not good choice at all.
but it is a good starting point.
No can't say a good starting point, decent computer yes but not a good starting point. I personally think you did well at spending 1000 bucks but you don't have a starting point you have a decent 1000 machine.
A starting point is not purchasing alot of middle road stuff which you have listed with the exception of the power and case.
A good starting point has obvious drawbacks that are easily upgradeable and other points that are beyond the current computer.
Good starting points in current rig are the, power and case, as well as the board. Depending on how you look at it maybe the video not sure.
Too make it a better starting point...
Get a raptor with the intention of later installing a larger harddrive for storage.
Get 2G of ram since the rest of the system will build into it and 2G should be enough for a couple years.
Then cheap out in places:
Get a 3200+ or the cheapest used dirty 939 since it's going to be the first thing you yank! (E-bay b/c you don't care if its junk or used)
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Personal suggestion on the above to make it a good starting point yet spending around $1000
starting point machine.
First that optical drive is too much Sub $55 with $30 I get $25 bucks back.
Spend that $25 and the cost of the 250G and upgrade to a raptor 72G might be short a little here.
The XP3200 is about 80 bucks cheaper than the 3700 and the 3200 is probably enough for now (<-- Here is your weak point that will later need an upgrade)
Take that 80 bucks and upgrade your memory from cheap 1G stuff to really good high performance 2G stuff (this makes another strong point).
I'd leave the video and board alone I think they are both good choice, when the 7600's come down to ~100 bucks you can SLI it. But isn't the 6800GS cheaper and about the same performace? (Not sure on this if you have the budget for the 7600 go for it otherwise cheap out on this last)
Now with what you have listed and my changes you have a solid system... probably overclock that XP3200 (you don't care about it right) to 3500 speeds with the decent memory.
Then get a dual core later that's your first obvious upgrade path and you didn't waste too much money on the first CPU.
Second upgrade path would be another harddrive, another not throwing away anything.
GPU's are tough, I'd consider a video card that could be throw away for later but the 7600 might make a nice SLI system later and you havn't broke the bankl with it.
