built mine 2.5 years ago for $1490...
XP 1800+ with 256meg DDR Crucial ram (the other half burned up) on an MSI mobo
MSI GF3 graphics and Creative X Gamer sound
0 Stripe RAID 40 gig Maxtor disks, TEAC 16x burner, and some high quality DVD
top of the line 3 Com Nic, 450 W. power, Silverado heat sink, all in a Lian Li case
Back then this thing was the shiz, even more so for the price and quality of each item. I looked up every item and picked out the top rated of its time or if it wasnt, then it was to be better compliant with another top component.
I wont be upgrading for a while seeing as how, its plenty fast for what i do and still plays current games with ease.
The next upgrade i will do is to an AMD 64 bit system with some compatible OS.