Just upgraded a 4+ year-old PC:
- Mother Board($120): MSI K8N NEO4 Platinum NVidia Ultra with 939 Socket (AMD)
- CPU($164): AMD Athlon 64 3200+
- Memory($99): Corsair MX 512MBx2
- Video Card($75): nVidia GeForce 6200 w/ 256MB PCI Express
The new mobo is very nice with 4 SATA ports, USB 2.0 and Firewire support, dual gigabit network on board. It even has SATA RAID support and overclocking utility functions.
While you can get a decent desktop PC today around a few hundred dollars, the fun and total control of what components you put in and get used is priceless. I just wish sometime we can buy our cars that way.