Best rig for 1920 resolution with eye candy?

See the form in my sig - edit your post to match it and we'll be able to help you out. To answer your questions though, a 5850 and an i7 860 should be good.

Ok, here's some more details:

Approximate Purchase Date: By year end 2009.

System Usage: Mainly Gaming

Preferred brands: Intel

Overclocking: No

Monitor resolution: 1920 x 1200

Additional comments: After reading various reviews, I've come to the conclusion that SLI/CF is required if I need to play games at the above resolution with AA / AF turned on and with the highest quality settings. Please let me know if this conclusion is correct.

Also, I don't really know what is the minimum fps needed to qualify as "smooth" gameplay. Is it 30? or 45? Because it drives me mad when games stutter during action sequences and I would like the minimum fps to be high enough not so that games do not stutter.

Thanks!

30 FPS is considered by many to be the point where you start to notice issues.

You get a lot of variation in FPS. If there's not much changing on a screen, then you get high FPS. If there's a lot changing, like with an explosion, you'll get lower readings.

I like to focus on what FPS I get during 99% of playing and understand that during explosions and such, the screen may get jumpy.

The new ATI cards, 5850 and 5870 are probably your best bet. I suggest getting a single 5870 and if it proves inadequate, get a second.

I think any core i5 or i7 should be adequate. In the vast majority of games, the video card is more important than the CPU for gaming performance.

NVidia may be coming out with a new set of 300 level cards prior to year end, so that may be an option too.