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<blockquote data-quote="drothgery" data-source="post: 453103" data-attributes="member: 360">By your comments, I'm pretty sure that you don't even want to think about building your own box. Here's what I'd keep in mind1. A fully decked out system (over $2500 before shipping and taxes) might have six months more usable life on the latest games than a more reasonably configured (about $1500 before shipping and taxes) one. And regular minor upgrades (like spending &lt;$150 on more RAM or a new video card) can extend the useable life of a PC by a year or two.2. No matter what you buy, in six months there were be significantly faster CPUs and video cards available for the same amount of money.3. Even a low-end new system today is much faster than what you've got, and is probably quite capable of playing the latest games, or would be with inexpensive upgrades.4. As other have mentioned, there's a large price premium for the highest-end products.5. Adding memory or a new video card is not difficult, and next year's &quot;budget&quot; video cards will perform the same as this year's high-end cards.So what I'd recommend doing is deciding how much you're going to spend, and if there are any components from your old computer that you want to keep (if you've got a high-quality, large monitor, there's no point in getting a new one). Then go to Dell.com and Gateway.com and configure a system that fits in your budget.Hint: if you're spending over $2500, look at Dell's Dimension 8250 line, otherwise look at the Dimension 4550 line; stay away from the Dimension 2300 line, which has an overly budget-oriented design that makes it a terrible gamer's machine, and the 8200 line, which isn't significantly faster than the 4550 line, but costs more. I don't think the extra cost of the 8250 (which uses PC1066 RDRAM) is worth it, but if you're a hardcore gamer with money to burn, you might thing otherwise.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="drothgery, post: 453103, member: 360"] By your comments, I'm pretty sure that you don't even want to think about building your own box. Here's what I'd keep in mind 1. A fully decked out system (over $2500 before shipping and taxes) might have six months more usable life on the latest games than a more reasonably configured (about $1500 before shipping and taxes) one. And regular minor upgrades (like spending <$150 on more RAM or a new video card) can extend the useable life of a PC by a year or two. 2. No matter what you buy, in six months there were be significantly faster CPUs and video cards available for the same amount of money. 3. Even a low-end new system today is much faster than what you've got, and is probably quite capable of playing the latest games, or would be with inexpensive upgrades. 4. As other have mentioned, there's a large price premium for the highest-end products. 5. Adding memory or a new video card is not difficult, and next year's "budget" video cards will perform the same as this year's high-end cards. So what I'd recommend doing is deciding how much you're going to spend, and if there are any components from your old computer that you want to keep (if you've got a high-quality, large monitor, there's no point in getting a new one). Then go to Dell.com and Gateway.com and configure a system that fits in your budget. Hint: if you're spending over $2500, look at Dell's Dimension 8250 line, otherwise look at the Dimension 4550 line; stay away from the Dimension 2300 line, which has an overly budget-oriented design that makes it a terrible gamer's machine, and the 8200 line, which isn't significantly faster than the 4550 line, but costs more. I don't think the extra cost of the 8250 (which uses PC1066 RDRAM) is worth it, but if you're a hardcore gamer with money to burn, you might thing otherwise. [/QUOTE]

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