Marcus,
I just upgraded from a 500 cpu to a 1.47 with 80 gig hard drive and 512 meg of ram with dvd player and cd burner 16x for $800. Compaq 5420 at Circuit City. It might be worth it to cough up the extra bucks - I don't know much about the video cards but this computer does everything fast!
I went with a Compaq (etc) because of experience with no-name or E- machine types.
