Hi i have built many computers for the team in the past couple years and seen many different cofigurations that would work the best for a FIRST team. Assumuing you would run 3Ds Max/Inventor/Photoshop/Premiere or other image or video editing softwares.
This is the optimal configuration i went for depending on the budget and needs.
The most important thing would be ram
atleast 512 Mbs is must, higher the better you applications will run smoothly with very minimal crash or freeze. DDR would be good because SD is old now
19" monitor works well when you do editing and use multiple tools and application. pretty much alot of workspace.
processor, well i personally would gofor the P4 2.53 C(800bus) why? because i think its enough for most applications these days, cost effective and would stay in the market for couple of years. AMD no problem, actually would work out to be cheaper and would mostlikely give you the same preformance. i personally think you dont need to go beton 2 ghz. if you are doing hardcore 3D animation and rendering then a better CPU would be nice.
Graphics card, after a certain point for video rendering it doesnt matter how good the card is. Honestly companies like Nvidia and ATI have their High end graphics card for mainstream gaming which a team does not require unless you play CS after robotics. The best graphics card for rendering and CAD is a workstation graphics card liek the Nvidia Quadro or ATIs FireGL and they are optimized for 3dsmax and other CAD rendering softwares. BUt you dont need to get one of those, a Nvidia Ti series Cards are good, i recommend the FX 5200-5600 or ATIs 9000-9600 no more no less should do the job.
standard onboard sound is enough.
Make sure when you buy a motherboard you have a USB2.0 and firewire port onboard very helpful when you attach cameras/printers and other things.
I recently built 2 comptuers for $1300 for the team. one was p4 2.5 and one was AMD 2.0 ghz Athalon. we have been using them for cading and animation ever since and run great. the pentium is more reliable.
PM me or email me if you would like me to suggest any configuration or advice on these things. Many comptuers built in the last couple of years, so i know whats good for your money.
Good Luck!
Akshay DOdeja