Well, I haven't set myself a strict budget yet. I'm trying to upgrade so that I can use most of the system I already have, and if it takes me $500 just to play a new game, then that game's not important to me. If whatever I do next with the computer won't play the hottest, newest game, then I'll just not play that game. I have bigger budgetary concerns than having an awesome gaming computer, but if I can make this machine work by upgrading a few parts here and there, then that's what I'll do. And the machine runs CS:S and TF2 (just not very well), and I'm not really interested in most of the really new games, so it seems that a few upgrades may help out. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I've been led to believe that this computer can be upgraded without going overboard.