[Vulcan]

A year ago I was into building a computer and researched it a lot. Now not so much.

For the best bang for the buck I've heard that an Intel 8400 dual core [$190] or the 6600 quad core [$205] are fine. If you plan on overclocking or just want to run cool get an aftermarket cooler.

Good video cards have dropped in price big time so a 8800GT for about $150 sounds good to me. I've also heard that the new ATI 4870 for around $300 is good value, but they're hard to find.

I'd probably get a Vista 32 bit OS but 32 bits only use about 3 GB of memory. Memory is cheap though so I'd buy two sticks of 2GB each for 4GB, at less than $100. I'd get DDR2 800.
Oh yeah, I'd stick with DDR2 rather than DDR3, so think about that when buying your MB.

I'm not up on the latest MBs but an Asus P5K Premium WiFi with Raid for $145 would be OK.

For a decent case with a decent Power Supply, I went with an Antec Sonato III with a 500 watt PS. $110

I'm not up on the hard drives but maybe a couple of Western Digital SE16 500 GB for about $73 each are good value.
My prices come from NCIX but with Memory Express you won't have to pay for shipping and RMAs, if needed, would be easier.
Have fun.