So, uh, planned upgrade, critique it.

squirly

I'm going to be upgrading the main system here (Home) very soon and this is what I've picked out, prices are in AUD by the way so you don't freak out too much:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 ($238) or Quad Q6600 ($325) - I'm leaning towards the Quad
Motheboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P ($168)
RAM: I'm going to use my current 2GB DDR667 (4x512MB, GEiL with heat spreader in Dual Channel)
Video card: GeForce 8800GT 512MB (I have a choice out of Palit, Albatron and Asus as they're all the same price, $395)
Hard drive: Western Digital 500GB SATAII 16MB Cache ($129) + keeping my old 200GB SATAI as a secondary
Power supply: Corsair VX450 450W ($99)
Case: Haven't decided yet, I'll just spend somewhere between $75 and $115 or so

Total: ~ $1216

How's it sound? Since I'm going away for ~2 years in like 2-3 months this PC is to mostly keep my family going (So little brother can play latest games and so on) with probably a RAM upgrade (Probably to 4GB DDR800 sometime) and possibly a video card upgrade later (Like a year+).

I'll also most likely overclock the CPU from 2.4 to around 2.8 or so so game performance is on par with e E6750 and we'll have the quad core bonus, like, if stuff actually uses it (Supreme Commander, UT3 and some others utilise quad core CPUs apparently and I imagine more games + apps will in 2 years).

Edit: I'll be buying all my hardware from these stores, just depending upon which has the best prices and availability:

UMart
GameDude
Computer Alliance

Feel free to go through them for suggestions or anything, especially in regards to cases.

JAEF

Unless you're going nuts with multimedia, getting a Quad is throwing away money on processing power you're not going to use for almost anything. Also with how cheap RAM is it's probably worth getting at least 2 1-gig sticks of 800mhz RAM that you can clock up a little. And I know you can't purchase from this link, but for reference the P180 is a beastly case that I cannot recommend enough. Excellent options for cable routing, quite roomy, buy an extra 120mm fan to slap on the front so it pulls air over the graphics card and you are set my friend.

Also, unless you have a huge boner for tons of ports you're not going to use I'd probably recommend you get the DS3R (I have it, fantastic) or the DS3L depending on your port needs. I find the DS3R has just the kind of expandability I want without $15 worth of shit I don't. Seriously. You will never use SLI, and if you do with the kind of budget you're looking at you better be wearing this.

Edit: Your pricing mileage may vary in crazy "Winter is Summer" land.

Dusda

Getting a quad processor is really only going to be selectively useful, unless you do a lot of video encoding. This will change over the next couple years with games (Valve's multi-core study is a great read), but for now you should be perfectly fine with the (much) cheaper Core 2 Duo.

I have a preference for Abit motherboards, though Gigabyte is just fine. I would follow JAEF's suggestions, though. You'll never use the SLI slot unless you really feel the need to play games at ridiculous resolutions.

Dehumanized

Man 8800GT prices are inflated over in Aussieland. Converting to USD I see that you'll be paying around $350 for that. Are the ones you're looking at factory overclocked or something? I currently have http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130296 -- which is the same card at $100AUS cheaper. Not sure if I can offer any help as to where you could get cheap American prices for it, but it'd be worth looking...

Of course, the inflation could be not at all related to international price gouging, and just the hardware shortage the 8800GT is experiencing right now.