Just interested?

[DONCraven]

How much money should the first time builder spend ?

[Real_PhillBert]

As much as your needs require but not your entire bank account.

[FTW_Perverse]

That's a tough question.  Depends on how confident you are in your build skills.  Also depends on what you expect the result to be from your build, in terms of performance.

[LawrenceBarnes2013]

no less than 800~1000$, if you want to have the best get go Experience and skimp on nothing

[Extingquish]

My first build was £600 ($1000) but just because I was on a budget, you may want to spend more if you're feeling confident

[hardware_guy]

Im building my first pc in a couple of weeks and im on a budget of £1000

[FTW_Perverse]

no less than 800~1000$, if you want to have the best get go Experience and skimp on nothing

 

For some reason this is the best answer.  I hope if you spend over $1K on a build or whatever, you know what you're doing as a first time builder.  Lots of money to find out you have compatibility issues, you don't like the look, or would have rather purchased a different component.  I have found from my experience that I wish I had purchased more performance in the beginning, when I first started building.  But I didn't really know what I was doing back then and have become VERY particular about my builds in terms of how they are cable managed, how they look, and overall perform together (price to performance).  Some of these things I never really considered before which I regret.  I've ultimately spent more money in the long run because of it.