That Was Then, This Is Now...

I recently had a friend of mine help me build a new PC for our family. The goal was to replace our old desktop PC that had been custom built in early 2002. It had since had it's motherboard and CD drive replaced in 2004, and the old CRT monitor died last year. It was time to put the ol' machine down.

[Then]

AMD Athlon XP 1.39Ghz Processor
512MB DDR RAM
ATI Radeon 7200
60GB Maxtor hard drive
MSI MS-6570E Motherboard
17" CRT monitor

[Now]

AMD Phenom II X4 810 2.6Ghz Quad-Core (overclocked at 3.0Ghz)
4GB DDR3 RAM
ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit
1TB 7200 RPM SATA hard drive
GIGABYTE ATX AMD Motherboard
ASUS 21.5" Widescreen LCD 1920x1080 full 1080p HD

[Part and shipping (from NewEgg): $945.17]

From what I know (and what I'm told) this is a rather spiffy rig I had built. You might say, "That looks nice, but it seems like an awful lot of money..." Look at it this way: if you were to go to a company like Dell or HP, building a computer to these specs (plus the monitor) would cost somewhere near $1500; It'll be around $2000 for a comparable Alienware.
One thing I will say is that if you know how to build a computer (or, like me, know someone who does) by all means, custom build one. You'll (probably) save money and get exactly the specifications that you want. You might even enjoy the main advantage of PC customization, something that leaves Macs looking like smooth, white homogeneity.
The nice thing about this setup is that it will be plenty functional for my mom to use, while still being fully game-capable (something we compromised on).
I am, by no means, going to become a dedicated PC gamer. I still prefer the relative comfort and convenience of console gaming. Say what you will about console gaming, but I've never found the whole mouse and keyboard setup to be comfortable, even with good hardware.

I'll see if I can toss up some pics, but don't expect anything spectacular.