I've actually ended up building 2 PCs recently
One for the living room as an HTPC for about $600 that's a bit too powerful (I ended up playing Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect games on my big screen, was freaking awesome on 1080p.
) that's also completely silent and blends in so well that people need me to get up and point with a finger at it before they realize it's actually a PC. Everyone just thinks that it's a DVD player.
Then I was lucky enough to have my PC fail a few months later and built a nice little beast for about $900...
I wish something else would now break or I could find a reason for another PC as I really want to build another one, but no excuse to do it. Those things are too damn fun to do.