Alright, I'm looking to build myself a decent desktop (from scratch). By 'decent' I mean ~2 GHz processor, 512 megs of DDR RAM, ATI Radeon 9000 (I've had bad experiences with nvidia cards, so don't even suggest 'em), a recent sound card, 30-gig hard drive, and a DVD+RW drive.
How much would all this cost me? Keep in mind that I'd be buying and assembling all this myself.
I cannt say off teh top of my head or do I care to go look, I'll like you to some places tho so you can add it up yourself.
You could do that all for about $400, though of course it's usually worth it not to buy the cheapest stuff...
You might want to consider getting a larger hard drive than that. My laptop is 40 GB but I don't have mp3s, movies, or a lot of VGs so I can get away with it. Other than that the rest looks good.
If you want a hot gaming rig, with NO monitor, it will run you $600 - $700.
You didn't mention a the 1337 case you are getting.
Good for you going with ATI. I don't like nVidia either.
A decent company that sells sound cards is Creative Labs. I would go with them if your budget is low.
last year i built the same computer, adding and Audigy sound card and winxp... cost roughly 650.