Gaming rig for Everquest 2 @ $1000

first of all, one should never be partial to intel vs amd or nvidia or ati, rather only partial to a better product, that being said, i would recommend not going i7 if you have to buy a monitor and all that because its not going to stay at 1g if your buying a whole new system monitor and all. look into a quad core so u save on the mobo ram and cpu also check out the amd black its a pritty sweet card, the tri core and quad core that brings us to your graphics, deff look into the 4770 in crossfire it beats the gtx 275 and the 4890 in colors and matches up to the gtx 285 (a 400 card) and only costs 220, its a great choice, i would have made it over my gtx 260 but it was not out.... if your up to boost budget up by all meens go i7 but don't expect 1000 for an i7 with a monitor with 1920x1200 for this monitor look at the acer 23 inch it is hdmi and looks stunning, i am using it right now and absolutely love it
also keep in mind that everquest is not that heavy a game
keeping to a gts 250 or a single 4770 is not a bad idea and will save money

So what you are saying is, if I have the money, go with an i7?

If so, then let's just start from there :-)

I can crank the budget up to 1500 or more if need be, but if I do i definitely want it to be somewhat "futureproof"

I think that my biggest concern is that I don't want to run into compatibility issues because I don't know enough about how the components are going to interact with each other. And again, I can get the monitor sometime in the future. Basically every 15th of the month I have about $1k to play around with.

Thanks again!!

if you have the ex cash id say bump up to ati 4770 in crosx its truly an amazing set up as much as i like nvidia id recommend this as future proof (even thou i don't believe in that word) and hey if u wana go i7 more power to you, im runing an i7 and WOW its so fast, truly amazing, i use it for 3d animation and video editing and the occasional game and its blistering fast

Alright me being a EQ2 player since launch i have a good experience with that game. IT IS EXTREMELY CPU HEAVY!!! graphics cards are least important. that being said.... i7 wont make a huge difference in eq2 then a core 2 duo overclocked to 4.2ghz. EQ2 only really uses 2 cores at the most. I built this computer and i can play EQ@ 100% maxed out with shadows, antialiasing, and on 2560x1600 resolution. since your aiming at a 1920x1080 you probably dont need all of it.:
* CoolerMaster Elite 310 Mid-Tower 420W Case with See-Thur Side Panel
* CPU: (Sckt775)Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8400 CPU @ 3.0GHz 1333FSB 6MB L2 Cache 64-bit
* CD: LG 22X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (Black Color)
* FAN: CoolerMaster V8 Gaming CPU Cooling Fan (Extreme Silent Operation at only 22dBA + Overclock Proof)
* HDD: Single Hard Drive (320GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD
* MOTHERBOARD: (3-Way SLI Support) Asus Striker II Extreme 790i Chipset SLI Mainboard Dual-Channel DDR3/1600 SATA RAID w/ eSATA,GbLAN,USB2.0,IEEE1394a,&7.1Audio
* MEMORY: 8GB (2GBx4) PC1333 DDR3 PC3 10666 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair Dominator
* POWERSUPPLY: 800 Watts Power Supplies (CyberPowerPC XF800S Performance ATX 2.0 Power - Quad SLI Ready)
* VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTX275 1792MB 16X PCIe Video Card (EVGA Powered by NVIDIA
*http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Samsung-2333SW-23-Widescreen-Full-HD-LCD-Monitor_W0QQitemZ200346713908QQcmdZViewItemQQptZComputer_Monitors?hash=item2ea5983f34&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1234|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1308|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50

depending on the deals you get it will prolly be under 1,500 and it will play EQ2 beautifully!

***ALSO EQ2 DOES NOT SUPPORT SLI IN THE VERY LEAST!!!! IT MAKES THE GAME WORSE THEN BETTER***
hope it helps

crossfire = sli its basically same thing it will give you worse performance then just 1, Sony doesnt want to update eq2 for it i dont know why. i got a 3-way sli 'cause i got it for free otherwise choose the best non sli or just 2 way sli board you want