[Techtalk] Motherboards and Bus speed

[lain iwakura]

I am currently hardware shopping, would eventually like to build a
*hopefully* kickass tower for two purposes: 1.) to install several
platforms and test various operating systems, and 2.) graphics (ie.
rendering with 3dsmax).  I have never built a computer before, so I'm
sort of taking advice from tomshardware.com and a few classmates.  I
wonder if I can ask you why are all motherboards have bus speed of up to
334 meg?  I have searched for motherboards with faster bus speed but
cannot find one.  Is it not on the market yet?  I think my computer
organization professor told me that even if you have a fast processor, if
the bus speed is slow then there really is no point in getting an
expensive processor when you can't get the best performance.

Also I'd like to ask you for some recommendations on which 'brands' of
hardware to get.  Here is what I'm currently considering:

Processor: Athlon XP 2.2 GHz (I'm kind of getting fed up with Pentiums)
Motherboard: Asus A7N8X
Video card: Voodoo or GeForce 4Ti series? (preferably at least 16-32 MB)
Harddrive: Unsure.  Need a large drive for several logical partitions for
graphics and os (at least 80 Gig).  Someone recommended Seagate.
Memory: Unsure. Kingston maybe?
Sound card: Unsure.
CD-R/DVD: Unsure...Plextor seems to be the fav of my classmates.  Would
like to get burner that is faster than 4x. ;)
Removable Storage: Iomega ZIP 250 (maybe)
Tower/Chassis: Know any websites with kickass towers at a decent price?

I have looked online for tutorials on building computers, but most of
them were kind of out of date.  If you know a good up to date website on
building pc howtos, I'll be glad to know that as well.

Thank you all in advance,

lain

________________________________________________________________
Sign Up for Juno Platinum Internet Access Today
Only $9.95 per month!
Visit www.juno.com