pegasus, your suggestion is very good if power saving is the only concern. But now a days when most of the applications are multithreaded, even the web applications, flash applications, a dual core is much more advisable. I think X3 is not required but X2 is a must have thing.
Reason is if you wanna do anything else apart from surfing, say using Word 2007, HD movie watching, running flash applications, a dual corre processor will add significant performance boost. Even web browsers like IE 8 and Firefox 3.6 are multi-Core aware.
So OP may drop the idea for Athlon II X3, but a Athlon II X2 is I think should be minimum requirement.
@pegasus your configaration is also good but if I have choice I would go for a Dual Core processor rather than sempron and when I am spending around 20k behind it. But saving electricity is also concern for all of. thanks for your suggestion.
Yes- i too agree X2 is a good choice- X3 honestly is overkill for such a rig though i believe 'overkill' is non-existent if enough finances are existent.
I felt OP wanted to do more of downloading and some casual web browsing- more like a secondary download+browsing rig.
Sempron 140 is pretty good for the price i feel.
bornik will have to make a few adjustments to fit in that X2.
I have tried to included LCD (20" for better experience) and good UPS in the budget though i am not sure if he wants those and within 20K too.
I have not suggested any cheapo cabbinet and CM Elite 310 for this rig as i felt a 24x7 rig should have some decent ventilation (120MM fan at rear for exhaust and front intake fan for cooling HDD/s)
p.s. do the present batches of Sempron 140 unlock?
..Well if OP can accomodate the X3 in his budget then lets leave the option to him!!
Many people on ThinkDigit forums use AMD and its all cool
