krisb

First off. take it slow and make sure you do some research. This way your price to performance ratio will be at its best. lets get started

Brands. I am an intel Nvidia guy so my recommendations will follow suit.

Case. look for somthing with good airflow. i build with full towers as the extra room is nice

MOBO. really you can go so many ways here. I like ASUS boards. Look at FSB memory and CPU support If my memory serves me (on the model #) P5NE/ WiFi is a great mid range performance board

CPU. you can get good quad core for cheap now. the Q6600 is a good CPU that will do what it is told. I would go with an aftermarket cooler though. Great models starting at $30

Memory. go with 4x1GB DDR2 PC-6400(800 mhz). Crucial Ballistic is a solid choice. this will let you multitask and run any app with no probs. DDR2 has gotton alot cheaper now so it isnt that big of a deal to double up on RAM

Graphics. pick a card you really like so if you want to eventually do SLI you already have the first half. the GeForce 9600gt are nice cards. look for a factory overclocked one. This card will give back what you expect from it.

Sound. Sound Blaster X-Fi is the best choice for sound

HDD. Start with a 500Gb SataII drive and you'll be happy. for under $100 you can get ones with 32mb cache and under 5ms respone times.

Optical. i like the Samsung Multidrive. SataII

OS. with XP you get a tried and true OS but who knows how long microsoft will keep supporting it.

I think that might be it. i probably did miss something though