to get a real good gaming rig you might want to get up to $1000 because it will last you ALOT longer. or i was planning to skip on everything then upgrade from there. like for example the CPU was going to get a dual core at first then once quads get cheap get on of them.
for sites i like tigerdirect and newegg also when your getting parts read the review and look it up on youtube it helps.
by gaming rig i ment to play games rather then a awesome game bound pc. however i should probably invest more in gfx card and processing power rather then a sound card and other mobo stuff that was what i meant