First I would start by putting this somewhere besides NEWS. As far as Mother board goes, I would sugest one that supports SLI/PCIe. From my point of view AGP will be around for a while longer, BUT, I know my next motherboard will have it because I see AGP not being the superior tech. Then you have to choose what type of CPU you are going to support. I refuse to start an AMD vs Intel war, its just stupid. Go with what you like, what you are comfortable with and what your budget will allow. I know personaly I am a fan of AMD; but that is for my gaming machines. In the corprate enviroment I deal with all Intel. There are reasons for this decision that I need not go into. Also go with a company that is reliable. I would highly recomend ASUS and ABIT. MSI hasn't been too bad to me either. Some others may have experiences with other bands I am not familiar with, but at least you have a start. As for Video card... ATI or nVidia... Thats the norm.. This is another I am not gonna start the crapy war ATI vs nVidia. They both have thier merits and thier troubles.
So I think it breaks done into:
1. Get quality that you can afford.
2. Think about how you are going to out grow some of your components.
ohh. And bring those CS "skillz" to back up your claims.

