when i started building computers my dad had been running a pentium 4 2.4ghz with 512mb of ddr266 ram. basically, he got his built with a 12x dvd burner from a company called "XI computer corporation."
his P4 ran at 2.4ghz and was 90C idle. it was poorly put together, and there was only one case fan, temperatures were just sky high.
not to mention, they sold him some blank dvds with the computer that DID NOT WORK!
all of this costed him $2300... and it wasnt even the newest stuff at the time!!!
it was a nice upgrade from a pentium II 350mhz though. lol..
later, the overheating took effect. it stopped rebooting for him, which is when he finally asked for my help. he wanted something cheap that would last him a long time.
this is when i replaced his old pentium 4 with an athlon 64 2800+ socket 754 1.8ghz. runs nice and cool at 35C