Quote - 8 xeon cores? okay.. so now i've found a reason to hate you Paolo.  :-D  I've got the parts list ready for when student loans land in the bank next friday.  It goes a little something like this.

Box:  Coolermaster Elite 430 w/2 Extra Coolermaster Sickleflow 120mm fans
$47.43
PSU: Diablotek 500w(may go up if I need to)
18.99
CPU:  AMD FX8150 (price should be going down in next week as new generation of amd cpu's is out in a couple weeks)
$190
Mobo:  Asus M5A97
$95
hdd & dvd-rw pulled out of current box
 16gb of crucial pc1333 ram
$80
Vid Card:  AMD Radeon 7750(basically the same as the 7770 for 30 bucks less.  not what i REALLY want but don't have the 700 bucks for a high end firepro)
$100
Heatsink: Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO(will go liquid cooled in december)
$28

560 bucks for about as boss of a single-cpu pc i can build right now 

 

Power supply and mobo are two things you DO NOT want to go cheap on.  If you spend extra anywhere, do it on those parts because everything else relies on them. I have never seen anything good about Diablotek and would recomend nothing less than this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139020.  I have the 850W version and it's great.  Stay away from Rosewill psu's too. 

Nothing wrong with crucial memory, but Corsair Vengeance or G.skill Ripjaws DDR3 1600 are only about $5 more which I think is worth it for the performance difference. 

Also check out some other case options. I love Coolermaster, but there are other choices with more fans and better airflow around the same price.