You can fix both of those.

1. Get a 2-4 year extended warranty. It'll only add a couple hundred to the price.
2. Make sure you insist on getting it without crap-ware. Or even OS-less (or their ubuntu option if they still have it). crap-ware-less version will add $50 to the price or so (they subsidize the price of the computer by getting paid to install trial versions of software from many companies including Microsoft), but the OS-less version should actually cost about $50 less than stock (but a copy of W7 is about $100-160~ cad).

Where's the source code? <yawn> Oh, yeah, they gave it to the Russians! Maybe if you ask nice they'll torrent it.

My monitor's native resolution (and desktop resolution) is 2048x1152 so I'll want to play at that as well.

No, my PS3 is fine, but it's not a PC and first-person shooters are best enjoyed on a PC. I hate playing first-person games on a console. Controllers are not meant for that kind of gameplay. Neither is Move, IMHO. I think I'll buy the PS3 version if it comes with the free Steam key for PC, but I'll prefer playing on PC.

I already have a retail copy of Windows 7 Ultimate (specifically for gaming). BAF is absolutely correct. I do not want to have to pay for a[nother] Windows license.

I'm beginning to consider buying the parts and assembling it myself. And when it doesn't work I'll blame all of you. $1000-1500 does sound a lot better... BUT, will that get me Portal 2 @ 2048x1152 and at least 60 FPS?

1280x720 is also 16:9 and would be plenty good enough. I don't know the price difference required to go from there to 1080p, but if it's significant, then just manage your expectations.

You're going to be broke your entire life with nothing to show for it except a bunch of used-to-be-nice, has-been electronics collecting dust in your closet.

It will make his ePenis bigger. He'll be able to gloat about a slightly larger number in synthetic benchmarks.

I don't just game though. I also open 100s of tabs in Firefox, 10s of them YouTube and other Flash applications. In addition, I often compile source code regularly. I would like a reasonably fast processor as well, but I'm willing to give a bit on that to save some money... It would be nice to improve boot times with an SSD, but I'm not concerned about load times as much.

I'm sort of left where I always am. AMD or Intel? Nvidia or ATI? I don't even know how AMD or ATI name / version their processors and cards so I have no idea what to even compare to Intel and Nvidia (not that I know much more about them)...

Samuel Henderson mentioned this on the weekend. I'm still not sure I believe it.

I haven't been gaming on PC in a while (due to my shitbox degrading and the Counter-Strike community shifting from respectable players to halo rejects...). So I haven't been running Steam (or even Windows) in months and therefore haven't heard anything really. I just realized that the release date was so near a short while ago. I think I became aware when a colleague mentioned last week something about Amnesia: The Dark Descent having some kind of connection to Aperture Science (I guess there are hidden login credentials in some indie games that unlock some bonus content on the Aperture Science Web site). After that he pointed out the teaser videos released so I watched them. That's about all I've seen so far.

If you don't know the differences between ATI/Nvidia etc., just wait until you do. It sounds to me like a bad case of money burning a hole in your pocket.

BAF, the suspense is killing me.

Append: It would help a lot if people would say what a reasonable price for each component is... My estimates are $2000+...

$1500 sounds like a pretty good maximum; lower is better. At least $1000 though...

NCIX is where I bought my current shitbox. It's not really their fault though. At the time I bought it to be a server. It was a custom box with a cheap case and stock fans. It ran fine text-only, but once I added a GPU to it and started using it as a desktop it began to overheat regularly. It survived for a while, but it's begun to kill itself when I leave it sitting idle... The heatsink is pretty badly clogged, but even clean it had trouble so I'm thinking of getting a whole new system to erase this blah feeling (and the uncertainty of not knowing if any parts are actually damaged/failing).

I will certainly check out that site once I get some sleep. Thanks.

Even though I can run at high-res, I prefer the aesthetic look of 800x600 with all settings on (esp motion blur... mmm yummy). Most of the detail available at 1080p just makes engine's anomalies more apparent. At lower resolutions it hides most of that stuff.

Don't get a socket 1156 motherboard and CPU if you want to be able to upgrade later, since that socket is being phased out. Go with a socket 1155 cpu, for example an i5 2400 (similar price and significantly faster than the i5-760).

For GPU I'd recomment the GTX 570. If you plan to SLI later, a 800W PSU should be enought.