I am looking for a 600 and 1000 dollar build not including the monitor or keyboard.

Any ideas on what I should piece together or should I give up an just goto Frys or Bestbuy?

Bubba

What are you going to be using the pc for? Gaming, Office apps, video editing?

Gaming

Ok, what all do you need? Monitor, keyboard, mouse, operating system? Or will you be using these items from your old pc?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.239582

Buy another hard drive, use that one in the combo as a backup, and you should be good. Thats pretty much the best "bang for your buck" you can get. Though the video card doesn't have stellar reviews.

I went to Frys and spent under $200 on a board with onboard video, 4 gig of ram and a 2.8 AMD dualcore. Was able to cannibalize the rest from various dead machines I had lying around and make 50fps in Vanguard

The combo Likenew linked is great, all but the psu. I just feel better with something a little more reliable.

There's also an Athlon II X2 combo, then just add psu, case, dvd and anything else you need (floppy? keyboard? mouse? aftermarket cooling?). The Ahtlon II's are a mixed bag, not as strong as the Phenom II's, but settle in around the E7XXX series from Intel (while costing less).

Just remember in games, it's all about cpu speed (the higher the better) and your video card (I'd suggest an ATi Radeon 4870 or 4850).

Yea, Rosewill makes solid lesser needed things, even decent for really cheaply made cases. But I wouldn't trust them with a ps, though reviews on some of their top ones are pretty good, including this one.