I went down to the shop and ordered the system today. The chap had a few recommendations for me, so I ended up with a similar but not identical setup for roughly the same price:
Hardware
Motherboard:ASUS P5Q-E (turns out it's just as capable as what I wanted, but cheaper -- and the onboard sound is as good as the sound card I wanted, so I need no sound card)
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 (faster than my original choice in benchmarks, and paid for by savings on motherboard/sound card)
Update
- Hardware
- Motherboard: ASUS P5Q-E (turns out it's just as capable as what I wanted, but cheaper -- and the onboard sound is as good as the sound card I wanted, so I need no sound card)
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 (faster than my original choice in benchmarks, and paid for by savings on motherboard/sound card)
- Power Supply: Antec Earth EA650
- Case: Antec Nine Hundred (goofy gaming case, but with very good cooling -- Bonnie's stays cold)
- Memory: 4GB OCZ DDR2-1066 Reaper
- Hard Drive: Seagate ST3500320NS
- Optical Drive: LG GSA-H55L
- Video Card: ASUS EN9800GT Hybrid Power
- Display: Samsung 2253BW
- Input: Generic Keyboard, Logitech G7 Mouse
- Software
- OS: MS Windows Vista Home Premuum (64-bit)
- Utility: MS Office 2007 Basic
With tax, assembly, and installation, it will come to within $10 of my budget.