Heres a fun one.. BUILD ME A PC!!

[aldub516]

Ok, so the title was meant to attract some attention, but I don't want to sound ignorant and demand work of you people that help me all the time.

Awhile back i finished my second ever mame cabinet build, and in that process you guys helped me with all kinds of issues. Im now in the process of building a funglo style pedestal. Lets see how that goes. Anyways, i never quite finished my first cabinet which was mine, and instead finished the second, which was sold to my buddy. Im now excited and on a mission to finally finish my personal cabinet. So heres my thing. I need help building a new computer for it. Now, years and years ago when i first initially started learning about cabinet building and mame and such, i learned a somewhat non-traditional motto.."stop learning so much and just do something". By that, i mean, i spent hours reading about joysticks, dead zones, throw, undermounts, over mounts..until i just bought a damn happ joystick, routed and screwed it in..boom done. I am pretty good with computer stuff, but still cant build myself a pc. I started reading around here about graphic cards, monitors and such, and realized its like reading chinese to me. But also realized, a lot of mame enthusiasts are not only perfectionsists, but demand a lot more from their cabinet than i do, there for my needs get caught up in endless discussion of tv framerates, hrtz's, and all kinds of stuff, when in reality, 90% of stock computers i find on the curb ALLLMOST can run gameex and what i need.. So..

My budget for my mame cabinet pc IDEALLLLY is 6-800 dollars..

My 7 year old pc ran like a beast and ended up in my buddies cabinet, so if a 7 year old custom built XP machine can do what i need, im not looking for overkill.. All my friends start talking 16 gigs of ram, 2 terrabyte HDs and just get carried away. Im like dude, i was running 2 gigs of ram and 250 gigs of harddrive space lol.

I am primarily going to be running gameex, running mame,and a few emulators such as nes, snes, sega, gameboy.. basically the simple early consoles. And some sort of a jukebox. I may decide to do some sort of a XBMC hook up to my tv to play my movies and shows. Infact, thats all im going to be doing. Games, and media to my big screen..

Please feel free to offer advice on single pieces.. or feel free to build me an entire machine and say "here, this is all you need".. Figured some of u might have fun. At the end of this, i will indeed be building said machine.

My cabinet has room for a 19" crt tv tube i ripped out of its old plastic casing, but id like to go with flat screen. Again, i get lost in people wanting "super authentic feel", but realize ill probably never ever notice a lcd as opposed to crt. After a few threads of monitor talk, my brain is dead. I dont know if theres "square" monitors" i could use as opposed to widescreen?

So guys, there it is. Feel free to explain why you would use certain things, or just post your build and ideas for others to agree or argue. Im more or less looking for the "simplest, straight forward way" to just build a sweet computer, to play all the mame games, and basically the early 90s emulators, as well as be able to run a media center. Go brand new, go 8 years old. As i said, i wouldnt of minded just cloning my old ass pc, but never listed what was in it before i gave it away. So for the 800 i spent 7 years ago, i could probably build a monster. I dont need new, updated, or rocketship status computer. Just something sweet that will let me turn on, play games, and turn off with ease, compatibility, and quickness. I want it to look great, but promise i would never notice a crt arcade monitor vs a brand new dell flat screen after 20 minutes.

ps. i write a lot. im sorry.