Another NOOB without a clue ... and only $1300 to spend

Q6600 and the cheaper mobo. nothing else to fix. Don't expect all high settings on 1600x1200 with a 8800GT though

The Vista you listed, is that an upgrade or home edition? Either way would suck. You can get home premium oem for about $114.00

i've got a simple fix for you that should work... i'm not saying there won't be bumps because i havn't built it yet... but i did TONS of research to find out some of the best stuff for the price. go to newegg.com and look at my wish list. it's under "public wish lists" after you log into your account or whatever. it's titled "brand spankin new pc" everything is there except the operating system.. if you want to buy windows... i suggest a 64bit shista oops, i mean Vista. for your gaming needs. you can tweak most of the parts to your liking, like the case, harddrive, and what not, but the main components should do you right. like the proc, will over clock to 3.2ghz, the memory. i have not used patriot yet, but that's the best deal for 4 gigs i could find that runs smooth and the reviews say it's good. umm... can't think of anything else off the top of my head. but that build comes in just under 1300... no keyboard or mouse or operating system... but thoes are minor expenses, unless you want "gaming" mouse/keyboard... then you might go beyond your budget.... for a fast harddrive if you want to "upgrade" the one i set there, get a wd raptor for now, at 1300 dollars you obviously can't afford your primary drive to be a SSD. but all of thoes parts are primary price point objects that should be quality and give you the ability to play any game out. including crysis. not to mention just be a wicked fast/pretty pc. oh... if you don't decide to go that route. give me a rating while you're looking at it. :-p (there is an 8800gt that has crysis bundled with it for 300 bucks, when it comes in stock... i'd wait till after x-mas, that's what i'm doing.

Hey Stu,

Good choices on all your components.

CASE Antec Nine Hundred 69.99
MOTHERBOARD GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L 89.99
CPU Intel Core2Quad Q6600 2.4GHz G0 Stepping 269.99
GRAPHICS nVidia GeForce 8800gt 512mb 249.99
RAM Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 59.99
CD/DVD Lite-On 20x LH-20A1H 30.99
PSU CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX 87.99
CPU Cooler ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 26.99
Monitor Acer AL2216WBD 22" 199.99
OS Windows Vista (32) 94.99

You might be able to know off another $40 with the HDD.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822148136

Total $1290

Your going to have a great computer either way.

Happy Holidays

oh, and better buy that case quick if that's the one you want... i don't think that price will stay for very long.

He must be from Virginia.......

haha... amd builds are not bad, they just cost a lot less.... i read an article yesterday looking at the two different amd black edition procs and putting them up against the 6600 and 6400 i think... the performance at stock was a bit less.... but you can oc it for 130 bones. I wanted to inform and give an option.... and yeah, it's not a bad build at all. seems like all the parts are in the right place. :-p but if he's looking to shave a few bucks off here and there he can do so easily without sacrificing much performance if any and use that few extra bones to buy some other crap too... like maybe some air conditioner filters to lay in that antec nine hundred so it doesn't get all dusty. :-p (i had an antec 130 bucks on newegg now... not a bad case... but if you get an employee discount somwhere like "buttbuy" it's only 20 bucks with a psu, hahaha) you get ripped on cases, that's why the 900 is "cheap" now. anyway, enough of me talking... time to go back to drinking beer, playing pool, listening to music and waiting to have enough money to build my pc!!!