That's a powerhouse, but I've never understood the need to get the latest when I can manage with almost latest for several years.
Just last winter I got myself the following:
Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe AM2+ Motherboard - 49.00 €
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ 3.1 GHz 89W CPU - 76.90 €
2 x Kingston Valueram 2048 MB 800MHz DDR2 - 33.80 €
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 400 GB - 65.00 €
Creative X-Fi Extreme Audio PCI sound card - 40.00 €
Antec P182B case - 118.40 € (investment for the future; I'll be able to keep using this until motherboard manufacturers drop ATX)
Zalman ZM600-HP Silent 600W PSU - 101.90 € (bought because while the older Nexus 400W PSU could run the system stable, it didn't really like the load and started to emit slight 50 Hz noise when the computer was stressed, so I switched it before it suffered any damage from the load.)
Total price of this stuff was 485.00 € which was a very reasonable price for the computer I now have.
Already had a perfectly good GPU (BFG GeForce 8800GT with Zalman VF900-Cu cooler), Nexus 120mm case fans, monitor(s) and speakers so I didn't need to use money on that department. And the system is very stable and plays the games I play very well (FS2_Open, IL-2 Sturmovik 1946, Rome and Medieval 2 Total War) and delivers a good performance at newer titles such as Mass Effect as well. It's not a benchmark breaker but I never intended it as such. And I got it with less than 500 €...
And I could probably have done without the new HD and the sound card.
How much did that system cost you?
...I should probably say that in Finland, consumer electronics tends to cost in Euros the same as they cost in Dollars in US. If you can buy a GPU at 100 bucks, I need to use 100 euros or more for the same thing.
