[Aignam]

Originally Posted by miketwalker

He couldn't be more right. Stick to a good processor, and a basic video card (you could get away with a GeForce4MX perfectly, and they're cheap now). Invest in good RAM. Go for a motherboard with DDR (and I think DDR-2 is coming out/is out already... if so I'd go for that) and get at least 2 sticks. This speeds up the RAM speed as well, since DDR is designed to be Dual-Channel. If you've got extra money to play with after you setup a configuration, buy Crucial RAM. It's very good quality RAM, very well made. The more RAM size you have and speed, the faster your renders are (and you'll learn that's important on those final nights when you're trying to test last-minute things out and can't wait a night to see what's right/wrong so you can make your final render overnight). I hope this helps.

Crucial is good stuff, but not your only option. Corsair makes good ram, as does Kingston---OCZ is said to match them on performance but cost less. Look around for reviews and such and try to maximize performance and reliability for price.