@ mr. Oates: If I'm not entire mistaken, FL's Maximus has something like that. FL has had a single band dynamics mangler like you described for years, but I'm not exactly sure if that functionality in multiband form was included in Maximus.

I'd say a pre-built computer would be OK as long as you buy a decent power supply to go into it. Power supplies aren't sexy enough to include in the four color ads, so they skimp on those badly. I like Antec, myself.

I hated legos. I always wanted to play with the things they pictured on the box. I had no interest in assembling them though. I can barely remember that period of my life, but I doubt I made anything more complicated than a big brick.

Yeah, I sort of know it's a bad idea to spend that much money (which is why I'm not announcing the purchase instead), but I just want something that does everything I could want it to with zero effort and zero issues.

Dell is a nightmare to deal with and they load the computers full of spam (fuck you, it is too spam).

Seconded (Thirded?).

Not a computer then :/

You can get 85% of the performance in that computer for 1/3 of the price. I'd go with that, and upgrade again in 2-3 years (whenever the games you are playing are starting to feel sluggish at the graphics levels you are comfortable with).

The Enjoyment/TCO ratio will be higher that way

It's almost never worth getting a cutting edge computer, since the prices drop rapidly just a few notches down.

It dependes at what resolution. A 8800GT (a 4 years old GPU) will have no problems runing Portal 2 at max setings at 720p. For 1080p you'll probably need something better, but a GTX 560 would be more than enought. For the CPU I don't think you'll need more than a Dual Core for it (few games nowadays are very dependant on CPU).

Take into account that most PC games are console ports, so the requirementes haven't really go up by much in the last years. Clear example: I can smoothly run Crysis 2 at high settings at 720p with my 8800GT and a E6750 @ 3.2 GHz.

His $3000 configuration is a bit higher than "pretty good."

If you want to hit $1000, you'll need to make some compromises. You probably don't need a crazy i7 CPU, for example. i5, or a Phenom II will probably perform just as well at most of your every day tasks anyway. Same with video card. It also depends on what parts you can reuse.

If I were bambam, I'd come up with a realistic set of specs and a budget. Pick up a nice case and PSU, a midrange motherboard, CPU, and video card, and 8 or 12GB of ram (depending on if it's dual or triple channel memory - that $3000 configuration should be triple channel, so I'm not sure why it has 8GB...). If you're willing to splurge the extra, I'd toss a 120GB SSD in for system files and what not, and a 1-2TB drive for bulk storage. Sure you won't hit the performance of that $3000 machine for $1000, but you can build a nice machine for $1000-$1500.

Heck, I just haphazardly put together a configuration on newegg for $1450, with an i7 and SSD and all. Compromising on CPU/GPU/etc. and optimizing depending on what combos are available will only bring it down from there.

Not necessarily. If you're a gamer the only part requiring a regular upgrade is going to be your video card, and upgrading it twice is sure better than buying three PCes suitable for gaming. Basically, even upgrading it once is likely to be worth it.

Uhm, I think you miss my point entirely. Why buy a $500+ video card today when you can buy a video card that can play today's game at a reasonable* frame rate for $150? Even if you bought a new $150 video card every year, it would take over three years to make up the $500 cost. And a $150 video card in 3.5 years from now will be better than the $500 video card.

A video card is simple to replace, making it the worst candidate for future proofing.

* I define reasonable to be anything that you would be satisfied with if you didn't know there was something better available.

The i7 2600K uses the LGA1155 socket, which only supports dual channel (not that there's any practical difference between dual and tripple channel anyway).

Building your own will free you from purchasing a Windows license as well. We all know how much bam hates Windows, so there's another couple hundred bucks in his pocket.

thepiratebay.org says Windows is free

Portal 2 will run on the Mac version of Steam. Maybe he wants to build a $3000 hackintosh? A hackpro that costs more than a Mac Pro...

Yay Portal 2!!! OMG its almost here! ! !