I just built a new computer of my own and I had a similar Budget. 1500 monitor/keyboard/shipping included. I built a good rig, and am currently thinking if I should overclock it or not, since I found out that It will run guild wars just fine at max setitngs without an OC lol. Here are the specs, and you might want to take some parts from here.
2x 80 Gig Western Digital Hard drives that were on sale for 20 bucks each(with mail in rebate). You can get some awesome deals looking at the Hot deal section of the anandtech forums.
4200+ AMD 64 X2 OEM+ DFI Lan Party NF-D+Fan/Heatsink
I got this at monarch. They had the X2 for 525, and the NF-D lan party for 112. The NF-D is not much different from the Nforce Ultra-D, all you have to do is give it a SATII and SLI pencil mod.
EVGA 6800GT at monarch for 315 after mail in rebates. Pretty good deal and free shipping.
2x Twin Mos Speed premium from newegg for 90 dollars. This sucked. I received one BH-5 stick an one CH-5 stick. Dammit lol. Can't run dual channel.
480 Watt Epower/Tangan power supply from Mwave. They have a 10 dollar mail in rebate. It is 80 bucks before mail in rebates.
NEC CD/DVD burner 5340A form newegg. I got it when it was 43 dollars and free shipping, but they currently have it at 42 dollars with 4 dollar shipping.
These are all the essentials, but I had to cut back on the mouse/keyboard/speakers. I got them all together from a 15 dollar combo at newegg lol.
Hope this helps you.