WB to our nerdy world

And no kidding - a good pc goes a long way!

If you know how to build one, $500 would get you into something ok nowadays. 

I've probably built > 30 pcs - its not extremely challenging (but I doubt you'll find it simple your first time around).  As someone who's reused cases before, I generally recommend just starting from scratch and getting a new case.  You can typically find something that will be much better than your original case for $20-$30 and might even include a low end power supply.  Or if you decide you are going to be a do it yourselfer and want to reuse a case over and over, then I'd suggest dumping some money into a really nice case that is easy to open/close, good ventilation, etc. 

Places like new egg, microcenter, tiger direct all have "barebone" kits.  These typically are just a motherboard and a compatible cpu, but often include ram and a few other goodies.  If you have a local microcenter, I'd strongly suggest heading over there on a scouting mission and get some info from them.

All of that said, GCFL, hope you continue to enjoy your new pc!

Dell used to be the same, probably still are, but I haven't paid attention in about 4 years to it.

Which reminds me...

I'm due for a new machine in the next year or so.  I try to keep them for 5-6 years, which is pretty nice actually, since I've gotten over the urge to always have the newest games anyway.

When I do upgrade, I have 3+ years of 'new' games to pick through and see where they stand at that point.  Cheaper, and I rarely get something which sucks because the games have had years of review on them

Your post reminded me of this:

heh... computer savings time. 

I've used to be a guy that bought everything when it came out if I was interested.  Now, I TRY to wait.  Deals usually come within a year on steam at least. 

Good stuff man, welcome to the 21st century

thanks for the congrats everyone. Now...maybe I will try to play this Elemental game everyone has been talking about. wink, wink

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