Hmm, perhaps, perhaps not.

I recently helped a friend upgrade an old Dell. We reused the case, power supply, floppy, and monitor, mouse, and keyboard. Kept the old hard drive as a backup, and old CD drive to use for CD to CD burning. Here's about how the prices broke down:

Athlon motherboard (built in USB 2.0, Firewire, LAN, and 5.1 sound) - $70
Athlon XP 1700 - $50 (Retail version, came with fan)
Geforce4 MX440 - $40
RAM - 512MB DDR - $65
Hard Drive (40GB, 7200 RPM) - Free after rebate (Office Max)
48x CD Burner - Free after rebate (also Office Max)

Anyhow, by browsing the ads in the Sunday paper and getting to the stores shortly after they opened (and some mail order from www.newegg.com ) We revamped the entire original computer for about $250. I'd suspect you can do something similar (add a DVD burner for under $150) and come in for significantly less than new.