Looking hopefully to custom build our own PC's

Basic want:

Quad Core Q6600 (I think that's right)
HD4850
4 gigs of ram
500gb hd
Some version of Vista
Some sort of soundcard
A 17-20 inch flat screen monitor with decent colour, response time, contrast and brightness
An eco-friendly PSU that only takes the minimum amount of power needed.

I don't know the budget for each of us, but that's the dream idea. I have no idea on motherboards or what else to put. Please help me tech gurus.

You're looking at £650-750 EACH for those comps, plus extra for perhiperals (£100+ for monitor etc).

As for Vista version, get Vista Home Premium 64bit. Can be a bit of a headache if you try to run older hardware in it (wireless cards), though.

I am building a value machine for my family that is capable of running most games at half decent settings. It's a Phenom 9550, 2GB DDR2 RAM, 500GB HDD, Radeon 4670 with Windows XP Pro SP3 and costs less than £500.

Hmm, yea I think we're aiming for under £1000 each, but that's only a guess, I have no idea what the budget will be but it won't be ridiculous.

£1000 is OTT for a modern PC. Mine cost £850 including the case modding.

Yea, well I said aiming for under £1000, but we don't have loads of £££ so I'm trying to aim something that's not too expensive but will still be reasonably powerful.

I don't care much for huge monitors or snazzy cases with blinky lights, etc (even if some do look nice).

Monitors will cost you £100-150, get 20" ones, they're well worth it.

Cases will cost you whatever you want to spend, they're cheap nowadays, just get one with good cooling.

£500-600 will get you a pretty nice standard comp, £700+ will get you one specced like mine.

I'm assuming selfbuild?

Hoping to, yes.

Any updates on this Metty?