A good serviceable case with good cooling properties will run you around $100. Your Power supply will depend on what (if any) gaming you may envision. If you want a fast and gaming quality machine, The psu is important and may be around $80 TO $150. MOBO and CPU bundle (competitive) figure about $400. Ram $80 to $200. Look at Tiger Direct or Newegg online and you will get the idea. I tend to try to but the best I can get (in my limited price range) so that I won't be disappointed and have to upgrade right away. Better to save an extra week (or month) to get that dream part. It's always worth it. Don't let me mislead you though, if you keep your eyes and ears open all the time and keep up with PC parts and software you can and will find some amazing deals. For instance you can buy an Intel Q6600 quadcore 2.4ghz processor for under $300 right now. They were something like $700 last year. As newer and faster technology comes out, you can build your machine out of the best stuff from 3 or 4 months ago. All these things will be at a great savings and be almost as quick as the new one. Computers are so fast all ready that a little speed one way or the other in today's race, isn't that much.
