[=[BANE]=]

That's the beauty of building your own: it can cost as much or as little as you wish. My employer built me a box so I'm not sure of the prices for some components. I had to make some improvements myself:

AMD Athlon 1800+ - $100.00 (replaced AMD Athlon 950MHz)
Windows XP Home - $200.00 (replaced Windows NT 4.0)
WD 80GB HD - $130.00 (in addition to WD 20GB HD)
2 x 512MB RAM - $130.00/stick (replaced 1 x 256MB stick)
ATI R9700 Pro - $400.00 (replaced 8MB POS video card - WTF?!?)
Creative SB Audigy Gamer - $100.00 (didn't have one to begin with)
Creative Inspire 5.1 speakers - $80.00 (sound great!)
Logitech Cordless Freedom Optical mouse/keyboard combo - $100.00

TOTAL - $1370.00

Add in the case, motherboard, ethernet card, floppy drive and a CD-ROM for another $400.00 or so for a grand total of about $1800.00. This box will pound the piss out of a similarly priced manufactured PC. Reuse some components from your current PC and the price gets lower.

My advice: build your own.