$500.00 USD. For motherboard, processor, memory, and video card. I have no perference regarding ATI or Nvidia.

Has anyone had any experience dealing with Visionman barebones systems?

No experience personally.

Let's see...$40-$80 RAM, $100-$150 CPU, $80-$120 motherboard, leaves...$150-$280 for a video card.  Didn't count shipping, but still.

Ah, Canada.  Hrm...

I'm looking up parts here, but you've confused me.  Your profile says you're in Canada, yet you've specified USD as your budget.  While this is helpful in that it gives me somewhere to estimate (read above), it seems to imply to me that you're buying from a US re/e-tailer.  So if it's not a straight conversion, a CAD budget would be more helpful-for instance, if you're buying in Canada.  (xe.com/ucc says 616, is that about right?)

When you say barebone, you also imply to me that you're going to need a case and a power supply, as your old PSU obviously isn't going to work.  Is there any particular reason you'd apparently prefer to do a barebone and add a CPU and video card rather than building from parts?

Also, 4GB of RAM or 2GB?

And, finally, which is more important to you, CPU or GPU?  I'd assume CPU but just making sure-it's a personal preference, obviously.  For instance, would you prefer a dual core system with a 4850, or a quad core system with a 3870?  (I'm partial to ATI at the moment, as the only real place Nvidia beats them right now is the >$300 range, which most of us simply can't afford.)

The above is just examples, though-I'm currently itemizing out a build for an E5200/3870 system, as I'm almost certain that configuration, at least, will be under budget.

Thanks SS.

600.00 CAD is about right, and I do have some wiggle room for unknowns.

I found this system

http://www.visionman.com/widowpc-custom-barebones-pdc-e5200-25ghz-2gb-ddr2800-9500gt-512mb-physx-card-reader-58-p-7734.html

It seems ideal for my needs. I'm looking at reviews on the components and it seems a good quality system.  Just don't know anything about Visionman. If I price these parts out separtely at a local Toronto store, I can't do better. I may just print that page off and take to a local and see if they'll do it for 650.00 CAD. The economy's tight and I might be able to work a deal.

The point I was attempting to make is that Newegg has a Canadian site now. 

Also, I just facepalmed when I saw it's only got a 9500GT in it.  Half the stream processors of the 9600GT, running at barely over half the memory clock rate, on a bus half the width, with GDDR2 as opposed to GDDR3 memory.  The core clock is also a bit slower.

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Here's a build for you:
Centurion 534: $63
Antec EA500: $63
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P: $144
Intel Pentium E5200: $104
Sapphire 512MB HD 3870: $132
G.Skill 2x2GB DDR2-1066: $75

Total: $581

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Which isn't to say you can't adjust it up or down-you could save a bit on the motherboard if you weren't concerned about having a second PCI-E slot (I don't imagine you will be but I thought it'd be nice to have), you could save a marginal amount by going with 800MHZ RAM instead, etc.
Again, though, you didn't specify if you didn't want to actually build for some reason. 

Thanks. I'll check that out.

There always a catch, isn't there. Given that configuratation, what would you replace the video card with?

3870 or 4850, depending on cash available, where 4850 is superior (but also more expensive).

9800GT is interesting, but if you're going to go that high may as well get the 4850.

3850 could also be a valid choice, but it's not that much cheaper than the 3870, maybe $25.  For what it's worth, 9600GT is superior to 3850 in most if not all cases, but 3870 is about the same price as 9600GT and offers somewhat better performance, so I wouldn't recommend the 9600GT, unless you had an Nvidia preference.

4830 might actually be worth considering, as it's midway between 3870 and 4850-leaning towards 4850's performance, while leaning towards 3870's price.  In fact, I think that's my new recommendation.

Try this for an alternative motherboard-virtually identical except only has one PCI-E slot, and costs about $40 CAD less.

Running total with above components and modified with current post's suggestions is $556 CAD, before shipping. 

Those are GREAT suggestions.

Thanks so much for your help. I'll let you know how it goes. Have a very Happy Thanksgiving.

B5 rocks I still haven't watched the fourth and fifth season, since I'm waiting for my girlfriend to catch up. But Sebastian rocks so much! I wish I could find a picture of him wearing his hat, though...

EDIT: I so hate americans for your Thanksgiving tradition. It's not fair that you get to eat that good food when the rest of us don't!

Congratulations to JacklV for his greatest victory yet!

Not bothersome, just incongruous to have on a lizard creature.

Welcome back MarkWarren!   The galaxy still seems to be spinning on it's axis, and the Kzinti are still the dominant species, so all is well.

Now that the holiday is over, and I see that the latest patch for The Witcher supposedly fixed many of the early issues, I'm definitely going to pick it up.

Nice!  B5 is my second favorite sci-fi series, after the current BSG, but I dont remember Sebastion....

Ferrel, sorry to hear about your computer, but getting a new one is excellent news.

Sentient species taste better...

I have some news about the MV Mod. First, I'd like to announce that the Colonial Fleet will be a playable race. Second, I have came up with some ideas for minor races, so there probaly will be no MV empire based minor races. And that there will be a campaign. I already came up with a story idea.

BSG is awesome, too! My favorite show is Dexter, though

Sebastian is from the third season, and he arrives to test Delenn to see if she's worthy to spearhead the prophecies He's dressed in this Victorian suit and looks all too awesome

Thanks KP

amatuer trying to do his part

250 planets   5 econ resource

on a 450   

I havent seen every episode, so I seem to have some gaps in my B5 knowledge.  My gf and I really like Dexter too.  We've been Netflixing them and are part way through the second season.

I think you might be interested in my Great Galactic Swindle write-up JacklV.  It's complete up to the main swindle-point, but I need to detail the post-swindle points-grinding period.  Let me know if you want to see it.   I made a few recent refinements, and I currently have a game going on a huge all-abundant except for common habitable planets, which I expect will come in at over 600k when all is said and done.  My most recent score-test at the end of year 2 netted 334k.  On a similar map with abundant habitables, I think I can now score over 700k.  That will be my next challenge.

Sentient species taste better...

Good luck to you KP, speaking of Swindles I have finally come to terms that Great Galactic Swindles are too hard to acomplish in TA mostly due to the AI being more smarter than DA/DL

Thanks Seth.   Here is a screenshot of my economy in my current Swindle game, when my net income is the highest.  This is about 3/4 through year 3, with every planet fully built-up with nothing but stock markets, farms, virtual reality, and discovery spheres on planets with good research bonus tiles.

Sentient species taste better...

Can wait to start a game like that KP. I submitted my last game on my old computer last night. Several craashes but i got it gone. Hopefully I'll have the new system up and running by the end of this weekend.

IF you're only partway through second season, you should look forward to the third That is good

What's a Swindle game?

That's when KP shreds a box of tissues just as your sitting down to eat, so you'll get mad, chase him off, leaving your food unattended, so he can steal the salmon from your plate.

In game terms, you let the AI colonize for you (you cooking the salmon and placing on table), you make an uber force of a navy to war with them (shredding the tissue box) and you buy all their planets as a peace agreement (eating your food from the plate).

Well, I have finally finished my United Confederation of Planets ship style I made for the MV Empires Mod, but I need to fix some visual errors with two ships before I can release it.

Excellent. I'll PM you my write-up of the Swindle.  I need to finish the post-swindle points-grinding part though.

It's a max-diplomacy strategy where you extort all the AIs planets away from them.  I'll send the write-up to you also when its done.  Loup's creative description is pretty accurate.

Is Freeman still around and is the UCP still active?

Sentient species taste better...

Freeman hasn't been around since Seeker left and the UCP isn't active anymore but still I'm including the UCP because I'm being nice to Freeman becuase his empire is dead but yet worked so hard to get into the top 20. Now that I fixed the errors I'm going to work on a ship style for the HCH and Galactic Diplomats.

I've developed a variation of the swindle. It mainly involves getting the Korath to ally with me, then supporting them as they spore the shit out of everyone. Planets are much cheaper when they have 0 population. It's not quite as effective at scoring, but it works quite well.

That is sufficiently evil, sir.  Good form!

Very interested

Pls PM