Windows 7: How much have you spent on building your whole computer

Too much. I think most of my student loan has gone on upgrading my PC. As well as most of my wages from my part time job.

Yeah, that's a standard type TN panel...which is essentially what I have. I've got a slightly cheaper 23" Acer at the present time.

Thanks for the information. I've always had good luck with my Dell monitors. I have a couple of them at home and that is what we pretty much use exclusively at work in the office.

I did read about the A01 revision or higher online...so that would be something that I would be looking at. I've got an 18.1 Dell UltraSharp on one of my older computers now and it's been a fantastic monitor. Everything between that one and now has been somewhat of a letdown. So, I'm really looking forward to getting a new "really nice" monitor. Considering you look at the monitor all day long, it should be one of those things we don't skimp out on...but many people do.

Check this out: NEC MultiSync EA231WMi BK 23" Widescreen IPS Monitor Black

also rave review:Review - NEC MultiSync EA231WMi Review | bit-tech.net

Back in the day (486, P-II, P-III) the sweet spot for a custom build was about $1500, and that was what I typically spent. Price stayed about the same as capability (HD, RAM, video) went up.

My last four cost < $700 each, not counting monitors - two laptops, two desktops bought over the last five years.

$1300 on my hard drives alone.
$250 for my case
$200 for proc
$130 for mobo
$90 for KB
$60 for G13
$250 for 19" LCD
$150 for 20" LCD
$350 for Alesis M1 Active MK2 Speakers
$100 for 8GB of ram
$50 for my Sennhieser headset
$25 for DVD-RW
$360 for GTX285
$35 for cpu cooler
$80 for my MX1000 mouse (soon to be an MX1100 that Logitech is replacing it with)
$25 for a hub
$20 for card reader
$50 for Antec 650watt PSU ($129 one that was on sale )
$75 Promise SATA card

and that is about it for the current configuration.
I don't really want to add it up though.

for my HTPC

Compucase 7K Series Desktop Micro ATX £40

ASUS M4A78-VM 780G £40

AMD Athlon X2 245 £40

2 X Crucial 1GB DDR2 800MHz £28

Western Digital WD3200AAKS 320GB £28

Asus HD 4550 512MB DDR3 £25

Windows 7 £78

all prices excl. VAT

plus other bits & pieces

total = £370 inc VAT

1999 dell laptop win98se $3400
2001 dell tower win2000 $1400
2002 gateway tower XPhome $1100
2004 gateway tower XPpro $1000
2007 dell tower vista HP $750
2008 gateway laptop vista HPsp1 $649
2010 gateway laptop Windows 7 $679

+ around $600 in hardware(drives,ram,storage)
+ around $ 1000 in software (office 97buss,2000buss,2003pro,2007pro)

holy crapola, I can't belive it
$10,578

Good question - as my system is continually updated, it's a little tricky to add it all up.

I'd say I have spent, over a period of time, at least $1200.00 on this system.

About $380. (My specs are below)

I spent around $1250 (everything in the specs)