December should be just about the right time to buy, memory cost aside.
You will want the following:
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600. Accept no substitutes. This thing is cheap and fast, fast, FAST. It currently beats the fastest processor offered by AMD by about 15%. The price of the E6600 caused AMD to slash prices on its top processor by over $500. You can get an E6600 for about $350.
Mainboard: Get an ASUS SLI capable board with the latest NForce chipset. Sound and lan will be built on to the mainboard. NForce sound is excellent - don't feel as if you've gone cheap on it - you haven't. I hate to say it, but if NWN2 is your game of choice, you will probably want to have Quad SLI support on your mainboard.
Memory: You want 2 GB of DDR2 800 ram. That's what you want. That is not, however, what you should buy right now. There is a memory shortage on DDR2 800 and memory is WAY overpriced right now. Get 1 GB now and wait for the price to come down next spring to pick up the other stick.
Video Card: You have expressed an interest in NWN2. This is what determines your purchase - along with the monitor listed below. On this point, I know my stuff - it's a professional interest of mine
NWN2 uses Shader Model 3 and is a per pixel lit game. That means that for every pixel on the screen, the game produces lighting information for the GPU to process and display. It makes for a gorgeous game - but at a significant hardware cost.
At this time, for NWN2 you really have only two choices for very good performance: a 7900GTX card with 512mb of VRAM or a 7950GX2 with 1 GB of VRAM.
The 7950GX2 is essentially SLI on a stick. It's TWO video cards in one. Prices have dropped and they are now between $500 and $600.
Which one to get depends on your monitor. If you go to a large widescreen format monitor, for very good performance with all the bells and whistles turned on, you will want TWO 7950GX2's arranged in Quad SLI mode. That's about $1100 worth of video GPUs.
Sorry man - you asked. I explain why a little more below.
Monitor: You will want a flat screen LCD with a low latency (8 ms or less - (4ms or less? - even better) and excellent 2000:1+ contrast.
The real issue here is size - and it's damned important. In previous games, 3d geometry was lit on a per vertex basis. In Shader model 3 - it is lit on a per pixel basis. What's the difference? Easy: Per vertex scales with image size, per pixel does not.
(Note: Shader Model 4 -the "Unified Shader" coming out next year blends per-pixel and per-vertex to produce a shader that takes some advantage of scaling. SM 3.0, however, does not. It does not scale. And NWN2 is a SM 3.0 game.)
The Practical Difference:
1) Vertex Lit: In a vertex lit game, the GPU power needed to run a 17" monitor is exactly the same as a 19" monitor or a 21" or a 20.5" widescreen. It's all the same, more or less.
vs.
2) Per-Pixel Lighting: In a per pixel lit game - everything changes. Now you need to pay attention to the total number of pixels on your screen resolution. Every pixel you add to your monitor needs to be lit by the GPU on an individual basis. The increase in pixels adds tremendously to your required GPU power on your video card.
All things being equal, you would want a 20.5" widescreen LCD running at 1600x1050 resolution. Something like the Dell 2005FPW or similar less expensive models now making their way into the market are all great choices and you'll LOVE the look.
For NWN2 though, to run on that monitor, you will need a 7950GX2 and, imo, two of them in Quad SLI mode to be real happy.
Hard Drive: Dealer's Choice. Get a SATA 3GB/sec drive of a size you are comfortable with. Bigger cache size is always better - but it's not that critical.
DVD Writer: Dealer's Choice. LG, Lite-on, etc. Does not matter much. Spend $40-$45 and you'll be happy with the results.
Case: Get an Antec Sonata II with a 450 pws. You'll be happy you did.
Mouse and Keyboard: Logitech MX Duo - whatever the latest model is - get it. A little more expensive in the short run - but they last a long time and you'll be very happy with the quality. Given the length of time the hardware lasts - you'll break even or save money on it. Logitech's warranty support is excellent too and no muss, no fuss.
Printer: Prices are coming down on color lasers. They are dipping south of $300 right now - but they aren't quite where you want them, yet. Wait a few years for one of those.
In the meanwhile, the Samsung 2010 monochrome laser you can get for about $100 which gives excellent output. I have a Samsung 1740 - lesser quality - and you can find those for about $40-50. You'll be happy with either, in all honesty.
Do not get an inkjet. There is absolutely no reason to do that now. Inkjets are vanishing from the marketplace and in 2-3 years time - they will be gone.
The toner cartridges actually cost about the same as a new printer in either case. But you can get those refilled (do not do this yourself!!) for about $50 and you'll get 2000-3000 pages out of a full cart. You'll be very happy with this choice.
Scanner: Go to the local Best Buy and look at a stand alone scanner made by HP. Pay about $100 or so for it. Go someplace else to get the USB 2 cable. (They kill you on the cable cost). Ignore the request for an extended warranty. Scanners last a long time and the only concern is the lamp. HP manufactures using only quality lamps at their $100 price point. In normal use, you probably will replace the scanner 5 years or so from now long before it actually wears out.
