For a long time, about 5 years, I have had this tiny little computer with 3GB of RAM and a way old graphics card. I have been looking to upgrade to a new computer but I have very little funds to support this. Anyone know where I can get some cheaper parts to custom build?

A tentative budget might be better way to go about this. When I built mine I went through newegg mostly.

I have looked around there a lot. Maybe I should get a job. School makes that hard.

Newegg would be my source for the best price on parts.

Just as a general tip though, if you can afford it buy the higher quality parts so upgrading later wont be in a year or two, but MUCH later. I built my computer so it will have some longevity and I wont have to upgrade anything major within a couple of years of building it.

Thats a really good idea. I never thought about that.

The only part that I might have to upgrade in the the relative future is my graphics card because games are getting better and better in the "taking all graphical memory" department.

But besides that things like processors will make the world of difference because they dont come out as often as new graphic tech so putting the money into it now will save you having to buy or build a new comp in the long run.

What's your budget for now? Maybe we can help with some parts suggestions from newegg.

To be honest I dont think I have more than $500. Still in high school and no job = broke. Dota = Free!

If you have a mouse, keyboard and monitor this isn't too bad, you can build a decent mid-range comp. I built one for my buddy about a year ago and I think he spent like $800 (not including monitor and mouse).

Not bad. Currently, that old computer barely runs dota so I want to get something more capable of playing things and maybe one day playing planetside.

Planetside is a bit of a graphics hog, Its Infamous for its horrible use of computer assets and thus you need a pretty strong comp to run it. That said Dota on a $500 budget is very accessible

yeah. I haven't tried running dota on my laptop but it has 4GB of RAM but integrated graphics in the processor so it heats up when I try and play anything.

Do you need a monitor? Or just:
CPU, Motherboard, RAM, PSU, Case, Video Card, HDD?

I have all the external hardware. I would need the internal stuff and a case.

I have an integrated intel graphics card on my laptop and I dont believe I can run it

I believe it is Intel Integrated Graphics 4000

I have integrated 3000 so I probably shouldn't even try.

The graphics card that my laptop runs is a Radeon 7670 and that can run dota not as well as my desktop but it does the job

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/HjS7
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/HjS7/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/HjS7/benchmarks/

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($119.99 @ Microcenter)
Motherboard: ASRock 970DE3/U3S3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($69.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($47.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($73.49 @ Outlet PC)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon HD 7850 1GB Video Card ($173.98 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Antec EarthWatts Green 380W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $565.42
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-03-03 18:32 EST-0500)

You should be able to play even Planetside with this config (although even my i7 with 6970 is rather slow in that game, the game is just poorly optimized). Went a little bit over, but I think this is a price-performance sweet spot.

Wow. Thanks for that. I will check it out and see if I could get that done. Thanks for all that.

You can def spend less than $500 and put together a rig that will play the crap out of Dota2. It's the other games you've got to worry about ;-)