Hi! You may know me from the off topic, where the free market solves everything. I am here today because I have decided to build my very first computer - my current one is utter crap, a dell, 6 years old or so and in sore time for a replacement. I have a budget of a maximum of $2000 and preferably less - that's all I have in my savings.

After a bit of research, advice from #fiftychat and various tauntings and teasings from friends of mine, here's the parts that I've decided, all from newegg:

Case: Rosewill R6422-P SL Black/ Silver SGCC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16811147057)

PSU: Antec True Power Trio TP3-550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply with Three 12V Rails - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16817371002)

Mobo: ASUS P5K LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131180)

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe 2.66GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6750 - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819115029)

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3400620AS 400GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822148138)

RAM: 2x Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT12864AA804 - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820146565)

Pri Optical: ASUS 18X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe and 14X DVD-RAM Write Black SATA Model DRW-1814BLT (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16827135146)

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster SB0570 Audigy SE 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16827135146)

Video Card: XFX PVT88PYDF4 GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814150252)

FDD: SAMSUNG Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive Windows 98SE/ ME/ 2000/ XP - OEM (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16821103203)

Keyboard & Mouse: Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 B2L-00047 Black 105 Normal Keys 9 Function Keys USB Ergonomics Keyboard Mouse Included (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16823109156)

Wireless Adapter: MSI PC60G 32bit PCI2.2 Turbo G Wireless Adapter - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16833158017)

Monitor: Hanns·G JW-199DPB Black 19" 5ms DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16824254001)

Speakers: Creative SBS380 12 Watts 2.1 Speaker - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16836116028)

OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional With SP2B 1 Pack - OEM (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16832116059)

Extras: ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16835186134)

Subtotal: $1,477.34

So, how'd I do?

Case: Whatever, personal preference.

PSU: Should be alright, don't expect to lots of upgrades using this one. FWIW, it's a single rail PSU, the specs lie.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817163108&Tpk=silverstone%2bzeus
The Silverstone is a killer PSU quality wise, can't get any better. Same price if you can stand mail-in rebates. (which I can't)

Mobo: Fine, you get the features you pay for in mobos, no point in spending more for stuff you won't use.

CPU: Only $70 more for a quad core... nothing wrong with that one otherwise though.

HDD: You should be able to get a 500 GB drive for that price, does Newegg pricematch?

RAM: 4GB is good, speed doesn't matter a whole lot.

Optical: Should suite your purposes fine.

Sound Card: Not worth getting with those speakers.

Video card: Good choice, not in stock though. ;)

FDD: Who uses floppies anymore? Waste of money. :p

Keyboard: Personal pref.

Wireless: PCI cards for stationary wireless seem like such a waste.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833166010
I'd look at something like that, depending on what kind of range you need. Either way, mostly a personal preference, I just find USB easier to work with.

Monitor: No idea about monitors in this pricerange, at least it isn't the horrid 1280x1024 resolution, make sure you plug it in using DVI.

Speakers: You get what you pay for.

OS: You'll regret paying for this instead of Vista. The complaints of Vista vs. XP are the same as the complaints of XP vs. 98/ME. And 4gb of ram doesn't work with XP, you're going to be stuck at a bit over 3gb.

CPU fan/heatsink: Good deal for the price.

Yeah, go with Vista, it is a far better long term choice, you won't regret it. Vista won't have any compatibility issues with the parts you've chosen. And, if you get Vista you won't need to buy a sound card :) .
(btw, the sound card links to the disk drive)

Also, in regards to RAM, make sure you take this (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000994.html) into consideration. You should either buy less RAM, or install a 64-bit OS.

As for speakers, you may want to consider headphones.

And, if you get Vista you won't need to buy a sound card :) .

Doesn't make a whole lot of difference either way... Vista supporting only openAL is causing new games to only support openAL, regardless of if they're run in XP or Vista.

Hard drives: I recently got a Samsung HD501LJ (500GB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152052&Tpk=samsung%2bhd501lj ) - quiet, and it seems to perform reasonably well according to Tom's Hardware ( http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage.html ). Only $10 extra for the extra 100GB.

DVD-RW: Any reason not going for the 20Xs?

Zelig:

Unless he's running multithreaded applications a lot (or several performance intensive applications), most of that time a quad core will sit at 25% max.

I agree about floppy drives, I think we can finally let them die (can't you just steal it from your old computer, if you need one?)

Mobo: Fine, you get the features you pay for in mobos, no point in spending more for stuff you won't use.
P5K has two PCI-E x16 slots, one of which only runs at x4. So yeah he's spending money on stuff he won't use. I suggest you get Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128059) instead. Saves you about $30

Unless he's running multithreaded applications a lot (or several performance intensive applications), most of that time a quad core will sit at 25% max.

CPU: I realize that, for some people the $70 would be worth it, for others, it wouldn't. There's generally a longer usable lifespan from more cores with slightly less speeds than fewer cores with more speed though.

P5K has two PCI-E x16 slots, one of which only runs at x4. So yeah he's spending money on stuff he won't use. I suggest you get Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128059) instead. Saves you about $30

$30 extra for an extra 16x PCI-E slot, (2 fewer 1x slots), 2 extra rear USB, and external sata. I might go for it, I'm currently using 5 of my rear USB ports, and external sata kills any other interface speed-wise for running external drives.