£500 PC spec reqd

[pcAnywhere]

First time poster and new to 'build your own' PCs, so please treat with kid gloves!

I would like a PC that can handle games such as Rome - total war and other 'simulation' type games (i.e. no immediate need for super powerful graphics card) for around £500 (keyboard, mouse and monitor not required).

There's one other requirement - the system should allow for future expansion / upgrades to be made (I've had 'off the shelf' systems before and found that upgrades were not possible etc) - for example, I would like to have a 4 188pin slots, PCI-E and socket 939 motherboard...

I would *like* to have 2gb of ram and a minimum 80gb HDD and DVD-R too..

Suggestions greatly appreciated

 

[pcAnywhere]

Thanks for all the replies - I'll be purchasing the "AcesHigh" spec system after the next pay day

 

[pcAnywhere]

Just a quick question related to the parts suggested...

Would a San Diego 3700+ be a significantly better buy (for only a few pounds more) due to the 1mb of L2 cache?

I've never built my own PC before and after reading around this forum it doesn't appear to be too difficult.. apart from getting the heatsink attached to the CPU. Am I being paranoid or is this really a diffcult task (esp as I'm not know for my delicate fingers!). Would I be better getting an OEM CPU and a screw down heatsink and fan? If so, can anyone suggest a suitable make?

I will not be overclocking - so I guess a simple (and cheap) one would suffice.

Also - why a mini-ATX mobo?