The Mame computer was a spare computer that we had sitting around. I had just built my new AMD 2600 and my daughters were running a 1gig AMD, identical to the one I had been using.  So my old computer was a good choice for a dedicated Mame cabinet.  The parts are pretty typical to a older gaming system.

Enlight 7237 Case

ABIT  KT7A motherboard

1 gigahertz AMD Thunderbird processor

640 meg of pc100 ram

PNY Verto TI4800 GeForce 4

Sound Blaster SBLive Value soundcard

Plextor 8x CD burner

Creative 12x DVD-ROM

Linksys 10/100 ethernet card

Windows ME

Knowing that Mame is more CPU intensive than graphical, I understand that the GeForce 4 video card is overkill, But it does have the TV-Out I needed for the 27" TV that I used, and it does great for other 3d games that can be played on the cabinet.