Hey everybody, So for this totally awesome holiday season, I wanted to upgrade my computer and in this case I mean get a new one! I have had the same old piece of crap for about 5 years now and it can not even run the most low spec FPS games out their. I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!!! Seriously I get lag on even the most low of the low spec games! So I have brought it upon myself to get a new gaming computer so I can finally enjoy today's games! But this is where I need your help, I want to make it my-self out of parts off of the internet (yes I know how to do this, just make sure the parts match up, alright?). However I lost my list of parts I had bookmarked on newegg (hooray!) so I'm coming back here to spare me some time. What I want is a processor, motherboard, graphics card etc. NOT including keyboard, mouse, monitor or windows vista for about $600-800 that will play games like Crysis and COD4 flawlessly on max graphics settings. If you want suggest something that breaks the budget but otherwise around $600-800 is good. Oh, and make sure that the site you find the parts on ships to the US much like newegg and the like. Thanks, -SuperJman

Hi there!

I've build two of these PC recently for my friends. What I noticed, if you want to latest technology with the best quality/cost (like the latest series of a part, but not the extreme version which cost the double and give you .2ghz more) you can have it for $1000-1200 with shipping and tax. For $600, you will have to cut into some parts, but still get a good gaming PC. Unless you already have a good monitor...

I'm from Canada, so I use NCIX, but newegg is probably as good.

Problem now is that there is a new "generation" of hardware since this month. The Core i7 CPU, which need a new motherboard socket and DDR3 ram. Building one of these PC will get you over $2,000 fast and the previous generation (Core2Duo, DDR2) still didn't lower the price much. I think the price will lower just after Christmas, so you might think about waiting.

edit: here is what I bought for my friend like 2 months ago, and he paid a bit more to have the gamer case with a separate power supply instead of a bundle:
Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X4096-6400C5 4GB DDR2 2X2GB PC2-6400 DDR2-800 CL 5-5-5-18 240PIN Memory Kit
Samsung SH-S223F Black SATA DVD+RW 22X8X16 DVD-RW 22X6X16 16X/12X DL INT DVD Writer OEM
Western Digital Caviar SE16 640GB SATA2 7200RPM 16MB Hard Drive OEM 3YR MFR Warranty
Logitech Internet 350 USB Keyboard Black
Logitech G5 Laser Gaming Mouse 2000DPI USB Blue Black ENG/FR
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Dual Core Processor LGA775 3.16GHZ Wolfdale 1333FSB 6MB Retail
BFG GeForce 9800GTX+ OC 760MHZ 512MB 2.25GHZ GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDCP HDTV Out Video Card
Antec Nine Hundred Mid Tower Gamer Case 900 ATX 9 Drive Bay No PS Top USB2.0 1394 Audio
Antec Truepower Trio 550W Power Supply ATX12V V2.0 Active PFC SLI Certified 120MM Fan
ASUS P5Q ATX LGA775 P45 DDR2 PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 3PCI SATA2 Sound GBLAN 1394 Motherboard
Antec TriCool 120MM Case Fan 3-SPEED 1200/1600/2200RPM 25/28/30DBA 39/56/79CFM 3 & 4PINS
Samsung SyncMaster 2253BW 22IN Widescreen LCD Monitor Black 1680X1050 8000:1 DVI VGA

Well I'm not exactly talking top of the line here I just wanted suggestions on parts for a relatively cheap but fast gaming PC that can play something like COD4 without graphics lag on high graphics settings. I mean I'm not looking to invest that much into today's hardware but I'm just looking for some opinion on cant-go-wrong parts like the 8800 GTX etc.

My bottom line is a rig that can play cod4 and other new games at speeds that don't cause frustrating lag (I'm not talking about connection). All that extra $10,000 for barely anything is not what I'm looking into.

thanks again,
-SuperJman

EDIT: Oh, now I see the specs! Thanks I'll look into some of these parts for my rig.

get a geforce 8000 or 9000

thanks daviangel that was probably the best link ever! A lot of the people posted comments under the article with their own rig ideas for $800 so their was much to look at.

Has anyone hear mad a sub-$1000 gaming PC? Hows it run? What parts did you use?

-SuperJman