I built mine for around 1400 reusing a few components. The nice thing about building your own is that its infinatly upgradible at lower cost. Say far off in the day i need that 4.0ghz CPU to replace my 2.0. Well my ram is still fine along with my CD drives and so forth. So all i really need is a new mobo, CPU, Power supply (probably), and cooling of some sort. The little things can be swaped out later on when cash is more abundant.

Dont upgrade what works fine just because theres something greater out there. I ditched my 700 for a 2.0 cause on the 700, mohaa other games ran sorta bad. So for my needs my computer was out dated.

Also dont do micro upgrades that simply waist money. If your gonna do it do it so you wont have to deal with it for some time. so dont go from 700 to 1000, thats a waist. Be careful with video cards as well. People tend to go buy the latest and greatest without need. While my G4 4200 Ti 128 is probably out proformed by a 4600 and a 9700. I dont mind simply because i maintain over 60 frames in mohaa and often hit my set limit of 250 indoors. Other games dont have isuess so why spend the money to upgrade what works?

Thats the key. Dont upgrade what works for what you do!

Also are you sure your computer maxes out at 256 on the ram? You cant place a stick of 512 in there? IE take out the 2 sticks of 128 and replace them with one stick of 512. Or two sticks of 256. Cause i feel as most people who have answered this question on the board. That 512 is about all you need to game well and not have windows use all of your ram. Recommended Windows XP ram is 256. Though not all 256 is used by windows, that number allows for other items to run.

well, it says upgradeable to 256, but there is still one more slot to put some RAM in.

What is the name of your motherboard?

I find it REALLY suspect that it can only support 256 megs of ram, but will run a gig processor with no problem.

Best video card for nvidia GF3 and some 4's right now is the GF3 TI500 which is what i got, its an amazing card