[Dan Richardson]

I recently just built a computer locally and kept it relatively cheap. I bot parts from a local store called " Cheap Guys Computers " they were consistantly very competetive with online prices and often cheaper so it was just easiest to buy all parts from there. Plus they have in store warranty on all parts for a year, so if something breaks I can bother them without having to deal with a manufacturer. ( Of course parts still have extended manufacturing warranties )

I'm not exactly sure what your doing but my new comp is able to run pretty much everything with no problem at all. IE. Inventor, excel, autocad all and a very graphic intensive video game at the same time. ( I built it last week with help from Mike Walker )

Specs are:
Asus Mother Board A8V-ESE
AMD 64BIT 939 3000 Processor
Geforce 6600 256 Mb
200 Gig SATA Harddrive
1 gig of ram
Decent Standard Case
Dvd-RW 16x

From what I understand one of the biggest things that you don't want to skimp on is the motherboard. If you plan on upgrading later you gotta have a good mobo that has an upgradeable chip series and plenty of expandable pci/ram slots.

My comp cost me $720 and its pretty decent you can always go cheaper or a little bit more depends on what you want to spend.