bigfred 

Having just gone through this same process, I chose my rims first.

Presuming that we're limiting this conversation to aluminum rims. While rim prices can vary considerably realative to each other, their percentage of the budget is a far second to hubs and their role in determining whether the wheel satisfies your expectations is far greater than the hubs. Rims $60 (most velocity models), 80-100 (DT 585, 465, TK 540 and Mavic offerings), $100+ (HED C2, Stans). Some of those are only available in 32 hole. Having just retired a rear, 36h, Open Pro, I decided that I desired a change. So, I laced up a 36h Deep V to the existing Ultegra rear hub and purchased a set of DT Swiss 585's for a fresh build (which are only available in 32h). High on my list of desires, that went unsatisfied, was to build the fresh set up with a 23mm wide rim. The unavailability of such rims locally and from internet vendors that are willing to ship internationally at reasonable enough cost are all that prevented that. Otherwise, I would have built up some HED C2 Belgium's or Stan's.

Second, Spokes. $0.50-$2.50 each. Not a budget consideration in the face of rim and hub costs. Purchase what makes sense for your intended use. On the 36h Deep V, I used straight 14ga on the drive side and double butted 14/15ga on the non drive side. On the DT Swiss 585's I used 14/15ga double butted all the way around, front and back.

Third, Hubs. Add up what you've spent above. Subtract it from what you're willing to spend and you have your hub budget. I'm between jobs and working only part time, so my budget was reasonably tight. Chris Kings weren't on the table, although, I would have loved to consider them. It was going to be a Shimano hub. When I added up the above, plus the cost of tires, tubes, rim strips and shipping, the differenct between 105 and Ultegra didn't look like that much, realative to the build as a whole. So, I went with Ultegra. Given the weather here, I would have liked to have gone with a sealed hub, but, didn't see any I liked in the budget. Lower end DT would have been another consideration.

Fourth, If after performing the above, you end up with a combo that is commonly available as a prebuilt wheel. Chances are pretty good that you could save money by buying the pre-built and then hand finishing it to your standards. Any of the really common rims laced to a common hub of similiar quality is probably available from QBP or some where similiar at a cost savings compared to the individual components. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a machine built and hand finished wheel. However, if you're interested in building them yourself, I encourage you to do so and understand more about how your wheel are built. It will assist you in ensuring that they stay true down the road.

Notes: Shimano hubs are conviently designed with flange diameters that provide the opportunity to use the same length spoke on the front and nondrive rear side for many rim combos, depending upon how pedantic you are about your rounding of spoke lenghts. Most of the places I was dealing with only stock spokes in 2mm increments. Which certainly allowed for the above. If you want them to the exact mm, maybe not.

Also, I measured virtually no weigth difference between a Shimano Tiagra and 6700 Ultegra rear hub. 10 grams! That was it. Quality of bearings? Perhaps. But, no weight savings that's worth mentioning.