Well,
it's a few months later and
I'm still sitting in front of the same PC, still running Ubuntu
but...
I have to go to Singapore for a few days, and there are a number of family members going, so something like a new PC purchase can be made in parts and spread around so that no one person is importing anything valuable enough for customs to be interested.
I've more-or-less given up any idea of being economical or saving money
but will go for the something to keep me happy for a few years, whatever I throw at it, approach. (It's called enjoying spending money, and I have saved up more than enough in my personal (ie not family) travel/luxury/gadget fund
)
Thinking in terms of the following, as the heart of the machine:
Gigabyte GA890 GPA - UD3H paired with AMD Phenom II Quad x4 955, for which I am seeing prices of SGD 420 (about 14,200 Rs)
Memory I will keep modest for now, at 2 * 2Gb Kingston 1600, coming to SGD 114.
Case ... Possibly Cooler Master Sileo 500 (I like the look) with SM Silent Pro 600 PSU
or
Antec P183
as reviewed here, possibly with the Power supply mentioned in that review.
Essentially, that is all I need to build my machine: everything else will come out of the existing machine, and even when it has been removed, that machine will still be working.
Still have to think a lot about the case/PSU. I want something designed as silent/quiet, and see that as more important when
not listening to music, but just working! (Err... interpret the word "working" loosely; most people would call my "work" passing the time
). I'm probably overestimating power, as I will almost certainly never add any additional GPU, probably not exceed 2 HD, one or two Optical drives ...
(might make sense to buy case and PSU here, due to weight issue)
EDIT: OMG, that case alone is 14kg