I don't know if you just want amd because you like them lol, but you should take a serious look into Intel Core 2 Duos or maybe even the Core 2 Quads if your budget is big enough for one of those. Right now the intel core 2's are kicking amd in the butt.
i'm "building it for school" so i can write it off next year.
i don't really have a set budget per say. a couple months ago i priced out a pretty decent box and it came to like $2k. so i guess $2k is a nice round number to shoot for.
i don't necessarily prefer amd over intel, i've just heard from a couple people that amd is better. then again, i've heard the same about intel.
at a 2k budget a C2D is way better(this is coming from an amd fan) dont go quad core not enough support for them or good drivers the e6600 is the single best CPU in the world factoring in price
total comes to $1700 USD which leaves you $300 for other things such as dvd drive etc...plus there a couple rebates with those parts...thsi motherboard supports sli and so does this video card if later opn down the road you wanted to throw two of these in sli but that card can handle any game on all high settings without sli easily