Noob needs advice on retrofit

I would like to get started on my CNC retrofit. I had a servo cnc
system in the past that was by flashcut on a small Sherline mill.
Overall it worked great but was a little small for what I was doing.
I now have a chinese mini mill that I would like to do a conversion
on. I do have a good idea how CNC works, difference between servo and
stepper, etc etc, but the flashcut system was "plug and play" if you
will. Can someone push me in the right direction as far as choosing a
setup as far as motors, drivers etc, and how to interface all of this
together. From what I understand you can use software alone to drive
the motors directly from a windows PC. Is this the way I need to go?
I do have BobCad software that I would like to utilize as well. All
in all I would prefer to keep this project under $1000 if at all
possible. I need 3 possibly 4 axis of control, most G-code functions,
interpolation etc.

Is "EMC" a decent way to go?
I have seen "gecko drives" mentioned, are these good products? they
are very cheap

TIA
AP