cheap gaming pc

i know what you could do.... go to futurshop or bestbuy and get an xbox 360 or ps3 when it comes out honestly to go from an msn chatting movie watching computer thats ore than a 500 doallor upgrade if u wanna play cs a little better get a pci or agp vido card for cheap other than that ur just spending money to play outdated games when u can pay the same amount and get an xbox 360 save up about 1000 dallars that way u can afford somthing that hase future upgradability and performs nice if what i said hasent changed ur mined about throwing 500 bucks away post agian and i will throw u together a machien for 500 buck's gg Athlon 64 3200+ DFI lanparty ULTRA-D evga g-force 7800GT 1024 PC 3200 RAM ocz ocz moddstream 520W antec p180

sorry.. i need a computer but thats for that advice =D (typing... etc, anything a computer can do but a game consol can not)

If money's the biggest issue, I wouldn't purchase top-notch hardware because it tends to depreciate quickly. If you want to be super-frugal and if you're up for building your own system, you might consider purchasing essential parts that are on sale from somewhere like Outpost.com (Fry's Electronics). You might find a good CPU/motherboard combo for $60-250, 1 GB RAM for $75, a 200 MB HD for $50, and a 128 MB ATI/nVidia graphics card for $50. You could even reuse the case and floppy/CD drives from your current machine. On special occasions, they'll even have decent $100-200 complete systems, and you'd just have to supply the extra graphics card to play most games. I got a 1.66 GHz CPU+mobo for $60 and 512 MB RAM for $50 to replace my damaged board and to play a certain online game, and that was 2 years ago. You'd find something much better today. Of course, getting parts (or waiting for sales/rebates) can be a pain, and half the time it could be cheaper just to buy a whole system. Just depends on what you want. I think $1000 is too much for a desktop, but ~$500 would be okay. Now my friends do call me "Jewish", but my philosophy is that you don't have to own the best computer in the world to make yourself happy; just whatever's good enough for you. ;p

Whoops, I made a silly/obvious typo. MB -> GB

I built a solid pc for $500. P4 2.6 w/HT overclocks to 3.0 nicely.($112).1 GB PC3200(DDR400) RAM ($73). Foxconn mobo 648FX4MR-ES ($33). 80GB ATA133 HD($50). ATI 9600XT($76). NEC DVD-DL Burner ($35). AOpen DVD/CD-RW combo($26). 600W PSU ($22). 17" flat CRT monitor($70). I had 4 speakers, a case, and a 40GB hard drive lying around so those i didnt have to pay for. came to $497. this includes shipping and all. id recommend looking at ebay as well as newegg.com because i got all my parts from those two sites. my machine easily plays games like black and white 2 at high graphic settings. Look for settings at least this high if u r willing to go up to 500. Zo

Also after selling old comp parts on ebay from the case i made $200. so officially my comp cost $300;). btw the graphics card i bought is an brand new ATI 9600XT w/128MB 8xAGP which kicks the ass of the newer ATI x600 PCI Express. so basically its really easy to make a great budget desktop pc if ud like to. Zo