Good price for 500 chips...
Depends how nice you want...
Cheap & crappy: a few boxes of 4g plastic interlocking chips.
Cheap & ok (<10c/chip): skip the 11.5g dice chips and go with 8.5 super diamonds.
Nice enough to wow your non-chipper friends (15-20c/chip): any of the 13.5 Claysmith chips are rather nice for the price.
Quality, but not quite professional grade (35-45c/chip): Milanos or Majestics. They're pretty close; Majestics sound a tiny bit better, Milanos stack a tiny bit better. I hear Royals blow em both out of the water, but I've never handled them.
Professional grade (70c-$3/chip): ceramics are cheaper, and CPC/ASM is currently the best home chip you can buy. They cost accordingly.
That should get you started.