$1500 box budget - what would you spec?

[[AK]Clay]

Time for a new rig. My LCD monitor is great, but I need a whole new box. What would you put in it if you had a stretchable budget of up to $1.5K? OK to spend less!!

Want a good PC with the ability to read camera flash cards, good components, good blend of cooling and noise control, don't like overly large cases, and of course, is a great gaming rig.

[[AK]Hylander]

Clay,

Depending on everything you need, you can get alot for $1,500 right now.

Here is my current system:

Windows XP Professional
ASUS P5K-E WiFi Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4Ghz (Overclocked to 3.0Ghz)
ZALMAN CNPS9500 LED 2 Ball Cooling Fan with Heatsink
4 GB Corsair XMS2 (4 x 1GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
EVGA 8800 GTS 512MB (Running at 726 clock, 1815 Shader, 974 Memory, 70 Fan)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Sound Card
Antec Performance One P180B Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
BFG GS-650 Power Supply
DELL UltraSharp 2005FPW 20.1-inch Wide Aspect Flat Panel LCD Monitor

You can get a Core 2 Duo E8400 for about $200, a good motherboard for $100, 4GB of ram for about $100 or so, and you can get a damn good ATI 4850 for $199 or 4870 for $299. Best Power for the money right now is the ATI.

I've had this system for over 2 years now although I just swapped out the motherboard and added the 8800 GTS (which I bought right before the launch of the 4800 series from ATI unfortunately).

[[AK]Brorlis]

Clay,

Check out this post ....

http://augustknights.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10675

We specced out several good rigs in this one. I think Swae and Nuts both ended up with new PC's out of this one

[[AK]Clay]

Thanks Brorlis, I knew that it was discussed a month or so ago. In the fast paced world of computer components, I was unsure if data from even a month ago was still applicable!

[[AK]Brorlis]

Yea anything that new is still pretty top notch stuff