Doesn't take a load of cash these days. My Athlon 3800+ X2 processor and the motherboard were $179 on sale from Frys. Case and power supply costs between $40 and $100 depending on how exotic you want it. A 300GB Sata drive now costs around $100. As I said before, 2GB of PC3200 memory was I believe $79. CD or DVD writers are dirt cheap. My stomping Nvidia 6800 GS graphics card was $179 but I've seen that price now for a 7600 GT, an even faster card. Windows XP Home edition was $99 if bundled with the motherboard.

You just don't have to spend thousands of dollars anymore on screaming machines if you're not afraid to build them yourself.

Art