>>I am thinking of buying a new desktop machine and looking for recommendations. The main app will be Visual Studio so I want something with some horsepower. Unfortunately I do not have unlimited budget. Looking for great bang for the buck, I guess you could put it. Something that can make VS boogie without breaking the bank.
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>Here's what I've been doing several times for the last ten years (three times my box, twice daughters'): get someone who knows the latest motherboards, to recommend a configuration. Then go on Newegg and buy what the guy says (including the latest power supply unit - which are pretty much the only thing you can't use twice, they always change something to make them incompatible). Get your best old tower case and fit these together when the parts arrive. It's about three hours with just a screwdriver. I got a fairly fast machine now, 4G RAM, 3-core Athlon, and it cost me $400 (add $160 for a total of 1.6T in disks, which I bought separately, one before and one after). The greatest saving was on the video card, which was just a $60 or so, no fan (club) or other fancy stuff, this is no gaming machine. And it looks really nice now... see picture.
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>If I can do it, so can you.

Using old computer cases... brings back some memories.

I had one client whose office was in a moderately high-crime area. He had 2 computers, one for him and one for his receptionist/secretary. He was something of a technophile and always liked to have a fast computer. But rather than buy completely new computers, he would get me to put new guts in his old case - which was scratched, dented, had faded/peeling stickers on it as well as several coffee-mug stains. His office was broken into several times over the years, and the thieves always took the receptionist's reasonably modern-looking computer, but never touched his.

OTOH I have a couple of clients whose offices were broken into, and had all their computers stolen, even though most were old/obsolete. We were scratching our heads, why the thieves would bother with those old boat anchors.

A few days later, they were back up and running with new computers. That's when the thieves struck again, this time getting all brand-new stuff.