Best PC with $1500 budget!

I have been given a $1500 budget to buy myself a new PC for my new job.

It will be used mostly for developing in Visual Studio.NET 2003 & 2005, as
well as other network admin tasks.

Should I go with a dual processor system, or a dual-core processor?
RAID 5 would be nice, but I'm not sure about the quality of the built in
RAID controllers.

I've always been partial to ASUS motherboards. I like both Intel and AMD
processors, so I'm open to whatever you think is the best combo out there.
I want at least 1gb of RAM.

Suggestions?

On Tue, 15 Nov 2005 03:59:59 GMT, "Jamiroquai"
<jaykay RemoveThis @nospam.com> wrote:

>I have been given a $1500 budget to buy myself a new PC for my new job.
>
>It will be used mostly for developing in Visual Studio.NET 2003 & 2005, as
>well as other network admin tasks.
>
>Should I go with a dual processor system, or a dual-core processor?
>RAID 5 would be nice, but I'm not sure about the quality of the built in
>RAID controllers.
>
>I've always been partial to ASUS motherboards. I like both Intel and AMD
>processors, so I'm open to whatever you think is the best combo out there.
>I want at least 1gb of RAM.
>
>Suggestions?
>


Want at least 2-3GB of memory and do not "only" use RAID5.
Have at least two different drive volumes regardless of what
configuration is used for each. If that means at least one
is RAID5, that's not a bad idea. Be sure your case
accomodates these drives, many that cite # of drive bays
ignore that there isn't sufficient space between bays and
thus, that many users would leave every other bay empty for
best cooling.

Dual processor system is going to take a large chunk of the
budget, I'd go with dual-core at $1500 budget.

Don't know what else you need for the box, we could spend
the whole $1500 then find you want a $800 display (which
isn't necessarily a bad investment but at the $1500 budget
it's stretching things). AMD & Asus are a good choice but
you'll have to seek some benchmarks of your apps/version #s
to get the best perspective.