[Blarg]

You don't need much of a computer, but you might like to get a good amount of memory. That prevents your hard disk from slowing you down when you are importing and saving hand histories with Pokertracker, as well as web surfing, etc. You can get by with 512 megs of RAM(memory) for many things, but these days I feel much better with 1 gig. This will make hard disk reads fairly uncommon for a lot you will do with a computer.

Poker doesn't do much to slow your computer down, but it can be critical not to slow down sometimes so you don't get folded out of hands. Especially if you're playing 8 tables at once, you want and deserve a quick response from your computer. So get a 7200 rpm (ATA) hard disk and a gig of memory.

On CRT's, you can get 19-inchers that do 1600x1200 for not much more than $100 if you check sales at the right places frequently. I'm on one right now and it's fine. You probably don't even need one good enough to do 75 hz refresh rate at that resolution, but it is easier on the eyes if your monitor can do 1600x1200 at that refresh rate.

As far as package deals, they almost always include many very substandard components. Terrifically substandard. If there are any computer fairs where you live(they're all over the place where I live), you can often get smallish local computer builders to get you a very nice deal on components you choose yourself, and those computers will usually be better and (often be cheaper) than anything you get from a major manufacturer. Plus, prices at computer shows are often at least 10% or more cheaper than the cheapest price a shop owner will sell for at his shop. And you can bargain extremely HARD because another seller two feet away from the guy can always seem to find a way to get you the very same thing, on the spot, for less. Come in late in the day, too, and sellers don't want to lug all their unsold crap home either, and get even happier to give you a great deal. I'm not a big fan of negotiating, but it's very easy in these shows because you really are holding all the cards in the deck.

Anyway, don't get a celeron, they're slow and outdated, and for not much more you can get a nice AMD Athlon or Athlon 64, or an Intel chip more modern than a celeron. Their more modern ones are not just more powerful in a number of ways, but they also have hyperthreading, which can handle things like 8-tabling very well, because it handles different tasks independently of each other instead of one after the other like normal CPU's always used to. A sweet spot in pricing now is the Intel Pentium 4 2.8 and 3.0 speeds, and the AMD 2800, among others(Athlons are virtually always cheaper than Intel CPU's, and are also of excellent quality -- no hyperthreading though). Athlons also are 64-bit, which helps in future proofing your buy.(Look it up, I'm tired! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] )