Interesting, that many of you consider buying only new parts and throwing the old to the trash.
It's the geeks' Fallout 3 out there! One man's trash is another man's treasure!
You don't even have to spend $500 on a rig, you can get used parts for far less money. I'm only talking about the money-saver point of view. Why buy brand new, cutting edge stuff, when you can buy formidable parts for half their original price? There are many MANY obsessing manchildren enthusiasts who, when a new GPU comes out, they run to the store to "stay on the bleeding edge of framerates and shaders" and they simply either throw out their old (i.e. one year old) card or pawn it/sell it. And used parts, especially used GPUs cost almost half price. You can build a formidable gaming rig from $300, using barely used stuff. Granted, warranty might be an issue, since used parts rarely come with one (maybe some left over time from the original purchase), but if you buy from reliable sources, you won't need it anyway. If you are not finicky about used parts, you'll love it and save a lot of money.
Also, you can do the same. Many people who despise PC gaming because "its for the rich people" forget that the parts you change won't go *poof* into thin air. Surprise! You can also sell the parts you don't need anymore, getting back some of the money you spent on the new stuff. It might not seem like a worthwhile thing to keep all your abandoned hardware around, but get this: I did keep the stuff I was not using and I couldn't sell right away, and in 2 years I had enough to build another computer from the spare parts, and sold it. The money I got went into buying a new PSU, 1 gig of RAM and a HDD. It was virtually free money.
So building your own PC can have it's advantages as well.
