well I can offer my opinion on a few of your ?'s, but others may know more.
512k memory should be a MINIMUM, 1 gig is not overboard.
I'm not sure about the graphics card but I would recomend avoiding integrated mother boards, as you can't upgrade them, and may not even have an agp slot,
DVD may be a good idea but unless you plan on saving several GB of data I couldn't see a need for DVD-R. Maybe If you have a digital camcorder and want to do video editing or something along those lines. You can put 650MB on a CD-R and they are cheap.
I'v heard AMD heats up easier than Intel, but if you keep them ventalated good you shouldn't have a problem. still you may want someone who has more experience with them, as I haven't had an AMD yet. I would suggest though wichever one you go with, that you get the high quality chip. Pentium for Intel not the Celeron, can't remember AMD's at the moment. The way I understand it (anyone can confirm this, or correct me if I'm wrong) is they are made the same and if they don't qualify as a Pentium they get the celeron name. which to me sounds like just a lower quality chip.
Thats my 2 cents, anyway.
Re: OT: Help buying a new computer
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