Case- Antec Sonata III 500 - $117
Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L -$87
CPU - INTEL Core 2 Duo E8400 - $203
Video card- EVGA 512-P3-N801-AR GeForce 8800GT- $189
500 gb HD- $90
dvd burner- $ 30
RAM- G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2- $45
Vista- $100
Monitor- $150
 
total- $1066 estiamted with shipping
 
I was supposed to keep it at about $1000 and am a little over.  If anyone has a way i could lower price please let me know.  Thanks
 

You'll need more than 2gb of ram, otherwise good as is.

i originally had it at 4gb of ram but im running over priced.  Only get 1000 to spend for my graduation present.

That case is disproportionally overpriced compared to other parts. Something like this should do, use the savings toward another 2gb of ram.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811119068

Also, I recommend pestering parents for more dole. Act cute and whatnot...

The thing about that case is that it comes with a good 500 watt ps.  So if i get a new case the money would need to go to a ps and not more ram.  
Any other spot i can adjust my money?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811156206
 
how would something like this be.  I like the case but i have no idea if the ps is any good in it, or if it will power everything easily.

Ah, I see. You can always get a 9600gt instead, but it doesn't perform as well. Also, there's cheap ram, but they don't have heatspreaders and don't oc well.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820211271

Might as well just use the 2gb and upgrade when you get another $70 or so. It might lag a little on heavy applications/games due to page file usage, but that's only temporary, and hardly a big deal.

That case doesn't say anything about psu rail ratings. It should work fine, but I wouldn't expect a high quality powersupply out of it.

Simple....NO
 
those Raidmax PSUs are crap....

yea i think i will just use 2gb for now.  Don't play that many games anyway.  Mostly just cs, cod4, and bioshock.  You think those will run fine on just 2gb?

i ran CoD4 and Bioshock on 2gb - didn't face any issues

Yes, those should be fine. Crysis hogs 2+gb after a few hours of gameplay, but... it's Crysis. You'll also run into problems for Supreme Commander, but it's Supreme Commander. So yeah.

Yea i dont plan on playing either of those any time soon so  think my build is fine.  Thanks for the help.

You did a good job spreading your $1000 around.  Any changes in the core components would give you lower performance.  
Although that Sonta case (with Antec Earthwatts 500w PSU 34amps +12v) is a really good value and high quality parts the case/power supply is the one area you could save money and not have less system performance.  You can always add more RAM later.
 
If you cant scrape up $66 out of your own pocket, or by washing all the dishes and the dog for the next two months, or by the rebates on offer ($30 for Sonta case, $30 for GPU)  let us know you still need to trim costs.

you could go with a 300 gig HDD and and just get a DVD rom, not burner.  
 
but thats just me, I have no need for a burner.  you would only save like 10 bucks anyway.  

No offence, but that Raidmax case looks like it was made by Fisher Price.
 
I can't see any way to reduce the price without losing performance... but being realistic, once you factor in tax and shipping your price will get potentially higher. If you can't convince your parents to spend more or pony up the extra money yourself, you're going to have to make some cuts...
 
Most obvious way to save some money is to cut down your HDD capacity. I recently got this Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB drive ($65 + free shipping) and it's been running like a champ. If you feel you need more space, you can always add an extra drive in the future.
 
You could also downgrade to a GA-P35-S3G, but the $10 you save isn't really worth it...