Parts will still be expensive because imported goods are taxed high in Britain compared to the rest of Europe.

Sorry, bro. Not much way to get around that.

Bugger, well it looks like i'm going to have to choose between a new TV or a PC, well that's not a hard choice, i'm going to raise my budget to £750, do you think that will help? Or shall I just give up and run into the nearest PC World and let the dumb knowledgeless staff lead me to buy the most exspensive and equally as useless PC.

Hit up a local computer store. They'll probably charge, but a lot of them will cut deals and ♥♥♥♥ because it's hard to stay in business. Make friends with the owner, maybe talk about getting a job there and learning stuff about machnies. You may even get a new profession out of it.

I built my brother this PC last year using http://www.aria.co.uk (if you know how to build a PC)

1 DVI-D to DVI-D Cable 2 Meters £ 2.89
1 LITEON DH-20A4P 20x DVDRW - Black £ 12.65
1 Intel Pentium Dual Core E2180 2.0GHz (Retail 775) £ 43.15
1 Antec NSK4000 Blk/SilverTower £ 24.75
1 Xilence Red Wing Case Fan 8cm £ 1.95
1 XFX GeForce 9600GT 512MB PCI-E £ 98.35
1 250GB Seagate "Super Quiet" DB35.3 IDE 8MB £ 33.95
1 MSI PT890 Neo-V Socket 775 MOTHERBOARD £ 22.95
1 Kingston 2GB PC2-4200 ValueRAM (2x1GB) £ 23.25

UK delivery was £20 for this lot plus VAT was around £284

It plays crysis on high setting and any steam game you can throw at it but you might want to get a better CPU fan than the stock one, I suggest arctic cooling freezer 7 pro which is also on the site for £11. The case has a side panel vent with a CPU funnel but I guess the case is really up to you. You might also want to fork out for a bigger HDD but I was going for the cheap option for my bro (I'm not that rich)

I didn't include keyboard and monitor, you can get a switch box if you wanted and have both mac and PC hooked up to the same peripherals. My sister uses this for her set up: Belkin KVM / Omniview 2-Port switch but it only does VGA cables.

Prices will have changed since then so you could probably build a better PC than this for the same price.

If you're getting a 9 series card get a 9800, not a 9600.

feel free to rip these specs apart, as I said, this was a budget PC

EDIT:
just noticed a 500GB Seagate Barracuda SATA2 16MB is £32 on aria today
also,
nVidia GeForce 9800GT 512MB PCI-E for £89

what a difference a couple of months make

Yeah, I spent like 200 dollars on my 8800 in December and now 9800s are 150.

Yeah video cards are going to drop in price in a month no matter what version you get. >.<