After realizing my current processor and motherboard was ordered over three years ago, and my current processor, an Athlon XP 3200+, was originally manufactured in 2003, I decided to build a new computer. It has taken me two months to decide what I wanted and to get the funds budgeted, but I finally ordered it tonight.
I purchased the case, an Antec Sonata III 500, over a year ago. It's an expensive case, but one of the best as far as silence and style goes.
I chose an ASUS M3N-HD HDMI AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard for the heart of the system. The motherboard seems to be mostly compatible with Ubuntu, but not fully because it supports a quad-core processor. But most of the features are better supported in the 2.6.25 kernel and that package is available in an unstable form from launchpad.
The brains of the machine is an AMD Phenom 9600 Agena 2.3GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 2MB L3 Cache Socket AM2+ 95W Quad-Core Processor. This is a state of the art processor while, only being clocked at 2.3GHZ, has four cores so it can do more with each cycle.
The memory is SLI ready OCZ Platinum 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory. The motherboard will run the memory at 1066 MHZ for only one slot on each channel because of a limitation in the AMD processor. 2 gigs is plenty for me.
Last but not least, I ordered two
All for under $600.00. $469.34 without the case, with shipping.