Advice wanted for building a pc for under $400

[gb01]

Interested in building my own PC. Here's the challenge, I want to do it for under $400 including shipping costs. Here's the basic config I'm hoping to get.

Intel dual-core processor E2140 1.6ghz
1 GB memory
Windows XP home
250 GB hard drive
DVD+-RW drive (minimum 16x)
Prefer motherboard sound, ethernet, usb 2.0 etc..

Other considerations
-Must be quiet
-Open to using an AMD processor of similar performance
-unnecessary lights and flashy cases are undesirable

The question is, where/how to I decide which components. When looking on the web, I can find cheap components but how do I decide which one's are OK and which one's I really need to spend more money one? suggestions? Specific component suggestions and ways for getting better prices are very welcome.

[Jamie Nixx]

Challenge? lol if you said $150, that would be a challenge ;)

$400, easy, the E2140 is awesome, in fact it wouldn't look out of place in a gaming computer.

I could price 2GB of ram into your budget as well and a 320GB HD.

DVD RW will be fine as well.

Do you game at all? because i would probably suggest a good Motherboard with onboard graphics instead of a GPU if you don't.

[gb01]

Well that's encouraging info. :) I've been trying to price out components and was not happy with what I was finding.

We occasionally play a little donky kong on the pc, otherwise, games are usually played on the Wii. I expect to be doing video processing and dvd burning and that may be the most cpu intensive acvtivities.

[Jamie Nixx]

Yeah thats fine mate, thats totally doable, i'll get back to you with some prices and components soon.

[gb01]

Appreciate the assist Jamie. I thought I'd try to select some components myself and see what you thought.

N82E16811129032 Antec NSK4480B Case 380W Power Supply - Retail $84.99
N82E16813131186 ASUS P5B-MX LGA Motherboard - Retail $69.99 + 6.33
N82E16822136074 Western Digital 320GB 3.5" SATA Hard Drive - OEM $79.99
N82E16820145034 CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM $77.00
N82E16827129018 Pioneer Black DVD Burner - OEM 29.99
N82E16819116037 Intel Pentium E2140 Allendale 1.6GHz - Retail $74.99
N82E16832116056 Microsoft Windows XP Home With SP2B 1 Pack - OEM $89.99
Total price: $513

I'd sure like the price to be around $350.