I already posted about building my own system and I got some really good information, but today I was looking through my MAXIMUMPC mag and I saw this Alienware sys. It starts at $799 which is reasonable but I wanted to check with ya'll if its good enough for the latest games. Seems to be the latest topic these days...sorry bout that. Ultra Quiet 270-Watt PSU Intel P4 Processor 520 w/ HT (2.80 GHz, 1MB L2 CACHE 800 MHz FSB) High-Performance Heatsink-Cooling Sys Intel 915G Express Chipset-Based Board 256 MB PC_3200 DDR SDRAM at 400 MHz Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 80 GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA-150 HD 8 MB Cache Intel High Definition 5.1 Audio 16X DVD-ROM Now to me it's obvious I need to upgrade the ram and add a better graphics card. If I can gets some oppinions I would appreciate it. Thanks for your time. Nate.

To be honest Nate, you seem an intelligent guy. You could build a PC for less money with better specs yourself. But if you don't want to do this, I reckon it'll be a good system if you get 512mb Ram and a better Graphics Card yes. Plus that PSU change may be in order too. Have a look at http://www.newegg.com perhaps. They have very good deals, I am told. Radeon 9800 Pro 128Mb AMD Barton 2800 Asus A7N8X E-Deluxe 512 DDRAM PC2700

Thanks Stu.b. I was mainly just looking at my options, but I think at the end I will build my own system.

What's the point of shelling out $800, if you have to sink an additional $40 for a PSU, $100 for a halfway decent video card, & $50 for more RAM? Now you're up to almost $1000! You could build a system with better specs for less than that. Asus A7N8X-X 1800+ @8x210mhz 512mb PC3200 Ti4200/8X 128mb WDC 60GB

If you build it, I would highly reccommend checking out the 64bit FX CPU, it's awesome!!!! groups.yahoo.com/group/simplycomputers2

If you want a system that will last you a couple of years i suggest AMD 64bit CPU 512Mb PC3200 x1 (for now) Board of decent quality but not too important unless you want to overclock but nothing too cheap A quality PSU of atleast 400watts minimum of a 9800pro/5900xt if your budget can stretch then a 6800np hard drive up to you i suggest getting atleast an 80gig drive go for Sata even though theres not much difference over IDE go for a good brand though such as Western digital/seagate/Samsung etc Get yourself a DVD-RW i suggest LiteOn although any quality brand and ofcourse dont go too cheap, stick with onboard sound and upgarde to a decent card later on Q-TEC 550 Watt PSU MSI VIA KT4AV-L 2800+ Barton 512 DDR333 GeForce4 Ti 4200 128Mb Aero 7 Lite 80Gb Samsung ATA133 HDD 120Gb WD ATA100 HDD LiteOn LDW-851S LiteOn LTR-52246S

Thanks for all the posts.