[Panoptic]

Well, here's my suggestions:

Motherboard: Asus P5B Deluxe [LINK] (Open box, but it's under warranty, so it saves you some cash - plus if it's bad they'll send you a new one). I chose this board for its super simple "Automatic" overclocking - it handles voltage adjustment for you.

CPU: Intel Pentium Dual Core E2140 [LINK] Core 2-based Allendale core processor. Only has 1MB of Level 2 cache, and the clock speed is kind of slow, but with proper cooling, it can be overclocked to outrun the fastest Duo's Intel has out right now. Though, it can be overclocked to fairly quick levels with the stock heatsink.

Memory: 2GB Mushkin DDR2-PC26400 [LINK] A lot of people would suggest Corsair; I'm running Corsair now and find they have really high RMA rates, so I'm reluctant to suggest them.

Video card (heavy gaming) EVGA GeForce 8800GTS 320MB [LINK]
(light/lower-res gaming) EVGA GeForce 8600GTS 512MB [LINK]

Power Supply: Mushkin 680W Active PFC [LINK]

Heatsink + Fan: Thermalright Ultra 120-Extreme + Scythe [LINK][LINK]

If you go with the 8800GTS, that system would eat up most of your budget there, and you'd still need a case, hard drive, optical drive(s), and Windows, if you're going to pay for it. Either way, that's a ridiculously powerful system and if you take overclocking into the mix, I don't think you'll find more powerful hardware for anywhere near the price. Unfortunately, you're looking at pushing your budget probably 75% over what it is to get a system that'll handle Crysis maxed out, even if you're overclocking the hell out of it. An overclocked 8800GTX would likely handle it, but reports trickling in are saying people will need Nvidia's upcoming 9800GTX to handle it maxed out, and that'll probably hit you for $600+ by itself.

[Panoptic]

Pretty much any Athlon 64 or Core 2 system can chew up and spit out the Source engine. I've ran Source games at 1920x1200 with everything maxed for probably three years now.

As far as overclocking goes - well, I tend to purchase components solely on their overclocking ability. For example, my last three processors were an AMD Opteron 146 overclocked from 2.0GHz to 3.0GHz using a Thermalright SI-120 and Panaflo M1A, an Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 overclocked from 2.13 to 3.20 with a Thermalright SI-128 and Panaflo M1A, and my current CPU, a Core 2 Extreme Quad QX6700 overclocked from 2.66 to 3.8GHz with a Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme and... Panaflo M1A (will probably swap it for something a bit quieter). What you're essentially doing is adjusting the timing of the components and making all those (millions upon millions of) transistors switch at higher speeds. Of course, the higher amount of electrons running through the circuits means a couple of things: 1) More voltage is required to push everything through the CPU, and 2) More heat is generated. Too much voltage can instantly kill a CPU, and too much heat can lead to failure as well. There's warning signs of approaching the limits well before components will fail, however it's a good idea to read a bunch of guides and ease into it.

There's a few ways of overclocking, however doing it properly will almost always require a larger outlay of cash on the motherboard, as the low-end $60-80 boards typically don't give you enough options to do it properly. A good motherboard will give you multipliers for all the buses in the system, and your memory (CPU multis are usually available too, but most CPU's nowadays have their multis locked), so you can increase your CPU's speed without putting stress on other components (RAM, PCI cards, etc). Asus' Ai-series motherboards simplify this further by detecting the amount of voltage required by the CPU and adjusting it automatically as it needs. On my Core 2's, I've literally just changed the FSB speed and turned the memory multi down one or two notches, and that was it. Far cry from the old days of changing jumpers on motherboards.

Anyway, if you're willing to do it, choosing components from a line of CPU's known to hit high speeds then overclocking can save you a lot of money - you just have to know the risks associated. Myself, I'm not very fond of small cases. Less room for huge heatsinks and lower airflow. Granted, based on what you just read, I'm sure you can venture a guess as to why.

[Panoptic]

In my experience, larger fans with equal air movement levels are dramatically quieter than smaller fans, due to lower RPM rates; I exclusively use 120mm fans (excepting the non-replaceable fan in my power supply). A small case isn't going to be quiet if you want a lot of power; it's either going to be really loud, or, given the kind of power you're looking for, really hot.

As far as the benefits of overclocking go, well... I've found that Core 2's don't really liven up until the mid 2GHz range, and they really take the f- off when you get to 3GHz territory. A good system with well-chosen components and safe overclock levels can easily framerate increases of 40+%. This isn't to say I'm trying to convince you to overclock, but (IMO!) the benefits outweigh the risks if you do your research on what components can be safely overclocked, and really, there's enough information out there to take the guesswork out of it - plus, the Core 2's are very easily overclocked, even if you only want to push them a few hundred MHz. In my 13 years overclocking computers, I've not once burned a component.

[Panoptic]

On the hard drives, I'd say go for the cheaper one. They'll probably perform almost exactly the same.

Intel Dual Cores are basically Core 2's with some of the L2 cache memory disabled. For reference, a Dual Core (1MB L2) at 3.2 is about as fast as a Core 2 E63/6400 (2MB L2) @ 3.0 and a Core 2 E6600+ (4MB L2) at 2.8. Roughly. Personally, I'd try to save up for the Quad-core Q6600 (about $200$300), just because they overclock like mad if you get the right stepping, plus you'll be a bit more futureproof for games (if that's even possible).

Motherboards... I'd look up some reviews of Asus' new P35-based P5K motherboard. Found one for a decent price, but they seem to have quite a few negative reviews (on Newegg, at least... take those with a grain of salt).

Video... well, the only thing ATI has right now that can stand up to the 8800 is the 2900-series card, which is going to hit you for a lot more than that 2600, plus it's going to need a pretty big power supply. As far as which one to get - most companies just use the reference card design, so it almost never makes a difference.

Monitors... I've had great luck with Samsung so I usually just recommend them. Sceptre is kind of low-end stuff, so try to demo one if you can. I have a friend who had a Sceptre who replaced it immediately after seeing my Dell 2405.

This is probably my favorite choice for low-cost/high-performance cases, but you'll need a power supply. This one reviews favorably and is plenty potent for a quad-core, high-end video system.

[edit] The difference between the two CPU's you linked is (besides the clock speed) one has some of the L2 cache disabled. The higher-end one would probably clock higher, too.

If you push the budget there a bit, get the E6550 and drop the Thermalright Ultra-120 for now (unless you really want to crank it up). The 6550 would probably take being pushed to 2.6-2.7GHz and stay cool, which should hold you over until you decide you need something faster.

Bleh. If you go with that case, you'll need a mini motherboard (Asus' will have VM in the model number - enthusiasts usually shun the small ones as they don't perform as well and aren't as rigid component-wise as the full-size boards), it's going to run warm, a larger heat sink won't fit, and it's going to be a bitch to work in. Might I suggest this instead?

[Panoptic]

If you drop the add-on heatsink entirely and go with this CPU, it'll be rockin' fast out of the box and give you huge overclocking headroom in the future if you decide you want to try it out. Then you can save a bit on the motherboard too. That Gigabyte is a fantastic board - just not as easy to overclock with as the Asus Ai boards.

The 2600 (and its rival, the 8600) is middle of the road and will require a lot of the high-end features of UE3 (Bioshock, Unreal Tournament 3) to be turned down or off to be playable at higher (1024x768+) resolutions. Half Life 2 should run well on it though.

Excluding my power supply, I only have a single rear exhaust 120mm fan cooling my case, so I think it'll be enough (I have a 120mm intake fan in front, too). Note that it has a spot to mount an additional 80mm fan in the front.

[Panoptic]

Now that's hardly fair - he said he wanted as near top-of-the-line as he could get in his budget, and a Micro system just isn't going to get him there. Packing a competent computer into a tiny space and building a game-ready, high powered monster (regardless of budget) are on opposite ends of the spectrum. I played Bioshock on my system (Core 2 Quad @ 3.8 / 7800GTX (overclocked)), and I had to turn it down to 1024x768 to get it to run comfortably with everything turned on. A 2600 is a fair drop below a 7800GTX, overclocked or not. Also, I think he's "pro-sumer" enough to care about the additional component quality and rigidity a step up from entry-level offers in the motherboard department (I mean, he did have a headphone rig worth over a grand).

Anyway, I went back through and came up with this list:

$50 Cooler Master Centurion http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119068
$90 OCZ StealthXStream 600W PSU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341010
$110 GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L mobo http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128059
$9 Scythe 80mm "Silent IC" case fan http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185035
$170 Intel Core 2 E6550 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115030
$90 2GB Mushkin DDR2 PC2-6400 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146673
$70 250GB Western Digital HDD http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144701
$290 EVGA 8800GTS 320MB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130082
$32 LiteOn 20X DVD-RW SATA http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106057

My math puts us at about $911 for the core computer itself, there (my list would have also allocated $80 to a nice G5 mouse and media keyboard). That processor and video card combo would shitstomp the Source engine and give you awesome performance at near maxed out settings in UE3. If you're balking at the price of the video card, you might look at this one (1950XT 512MB), which wouldn't have as much sheer power as the 8800GTS, but it'd be a big step above the 2600. Of course, this is all just personal, biased opinion.

[Panoptic]

[Panoptic]

I don't think any games will force you to have a DX10 card to play - at least for quite a while; a lot of DX8/9 games could fall back onto older shader models.

[Panoptic]

Anything under a stout 400W power supply would be pushing it with a video card like that, unfortunately.

[Panoptic]

Should be sufficient. There's two 12V rails so it'd be in one's best interest to balance them out, unless they automatically combine if you go over the load on one. The 1950 is a rather large card, but one of the reviewers there said he fit an 8800 Ultra into it, so I'm guessing it'll fit.

Here's an HL2 screen running on my 7800GTX (1920x1200, 4x MSAA, 16x anisotropic). Even when it gets busy I don't see the counter drop below 80FPS. Plus, Source seems to favor ATI cards.

By the way, if you get a motherboard with onboard video and can survive with it for a while, the 8800GTS and 2900XT (both DX10, though I think the ATI is 10.1 compliant?) might become more reasonable propositions in November when the Nvidia GF9 series drops.

[Panoptic]

[Panoptic]

[Panoptic]

Mouse (as long as you're right handed): Logitech MX518, or, if you feel like spending a bit more, the G5. Just looked, the G5 is only $5 more than the MX518. Totally worth the difference.

Keyboard... well, I've got a G15, and the LCD is neat for a little while, but beyond that it's pretty pointless. The G11 is the same keyboard only without the LCD. The key action, while not "clicky" is super clean, and most keyboards feel like mush compared to it now. Beyond that, I had a $25 Logitech Media Elite before this one and liked it, but that goes to the non-standard (though, more logical) vertical Home/End/Page Up/Down orientation. As far as soft-touch keyboards go, anything $20-30 from Microsoft, Logitech, or IBM should serve you well. If you've got a big electronics boutique near you, you might try hammering away on a Saitek Eclipse I/II or a Razer Tarantula, as well.

If you're looking for the clicky keys, the only real option that I know of right now is the Das Keyboard 2 (or something from www.pckeyboard.com), but that doesn't have any labels on the keys. I don't know of any clicky keyboards with multimedia keys, which I can't go without anymore, honestly. I've got an old Chicony keyboard that sounds like the apocalypse when you put a fast typist on it, but I can't use it because it doesn't have Windows keys. Oh, yeah, Logitech's MX5000 keyboard has slightly clicky keys on it, but it's wireless. Meh.

[Panoptic]

Well, it seems like there's an 8800GT on the horizon now in the $200-250 range that outperforms the 8800GTS. Apparently there will be an 8900GTS and 8900GTX, and the 8800GT is a scaled down 8900. Supposedly, ATI's 2950 is a monster, so Nvidia decided to put out a revision of the GF8 series. *shrug*

[Panoptic]

[Panoptic]

PC Power & Cooling has Dell direct replacement PSU's, so you may want to check them out. Also, the 8800GT 256MB and 512MB come out in about a week, for $200 and $250 respectively, and they haul some ass. At stock clocks they're about halfway between an 8800GTS and 8800GTX, and I bet they'd pass the GTX if you were willing to overclock.

XT/XTX is usually the top of the range for ATI, and the Pro being a lower range. For Nvidia, GT is a bit quicker than a standard card, and they seem to be using GTX/GTS for the top, and 2nd to top of the range, respectively. Then there's the GS, which is basically the bottom-end solution in the given series (excluding the LE, which only pops up on the lowest-end, barely-better-than-onboard-video solutions). The main thing to worry about is to look for the number of shader units; sometimes the lower-end Pro/GT cards have some of them disabled, so they're not as good as just lower-clocked versions of the higher end cards.

Low-end cards often have tons of memory installed to make them look better to folks just deciding on basic numbers. The GT/XT would generally outperform these in just about every way, but 256MB is pushing the limits for a lot of upcoming games.

Also: Everyone at Futuremark seems to be getting about 30fps in Crysis running Core 2's and 8800's. I've heard that during an interview, someone at Crytek said a Quad-core CPU should be first on your list of upgrades to play the game maxed out. *shrug*

[Panoptic]

As far as PSU's go, a powerful video card can take 150-200+ watts by itself when it's presented with a load. CPU's can take as low as 40-70 watts (low-energy desktop models), and as much as 125-200+ under load. Then factor in the fact that you have a chipset, a hard drive with at least one motor that's always on, one or two optical drives that spin up and down constantly when there's a disc inserted, various motherboard components, network adapter, sound card, etc.. So you can see how the wattage requirement in a high-end system can build up quickly. Also note that almost no power supplies on the market will generate their full-rated power all the time (check the efficiency ratings - anything over the efficiency level (watch for temperature level and how it factors in) is lost as heat). So, if driving the described system at full load with two hard drives and two optical drives, plus a few USB devices, it'd be safe to say that you'd need a reasonably efficient 600W PSU to be covered.

As far as the video card goes - the 256MB card will be about the same speed - in fact perhaps ever so slightly faster as the GPU doesn't have to address as much memory, however 256MB is going to limit the amount of texture detail the card is capable of producing and still remain running at the full speed the 512MB card would offer. I, personally, would spend the extra $50, especially considering this upcoming $250 card is beating cards that cost over $400~500 right now. As far as availablilty - the test cards are in reviewers' hands. You should actually be able to go out and buy one right now.

[Panoptic]

With a single drive of each type and no overclocking, you might get by on a GOOD 400 watt supply. Otherwise, that OCZ I linked earlier is a good unit for the price. Just note that 12V rail amperage is the important number when driving the CPU and video cards. If you find a 400~500W with a 12V rail (or combined rails) with more amperage than your average 600, it'd probably be a safe bet.

But yeah, unfortunately the card's street price is going to be a bit high right away (Newegg has a Gigabyte 512MB for $270), as they're going to be in high demand for a bit. If you shop around, you can probably find one at the $250 point.

[Panoptic]

Get a SATA DVD burner instead of a PATA. Less of a pain in the ass, and cleaner cabling. Make sure the power supply has a pair of SATA power connectors, or comes with wire adapters. The motherboard... a VIA chipset isn't going to give you the best performance. Try to shimmy a board with either an Intel or Nvidia chipset in there, if you can. Otherwise, looks good.

[Panoptic]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128058

Midrange performance at double-digit prices.

But man, that looks like the 8800 is going to be a tight fit on there. Granted, all of the Micro's look that way, really.

[Panoptic]

Yes, get some compound. The tacky shit on the bottom of the OEM heatsinks is worthless. If you've got some laying around though, no need to buy AS5; the performance difference isn't more than 1-2C, and some of the "cheap" compounds even test better.

[Panoptic]

I think they dump inactive shopping carts after 48 hours.

[Panoptic]

Yeah, pretty much every manufacturer just uses the reference card, maybe with a different colored PCB and a different label on the heatsink/fan cover.

[Panoptic]

Small Form Factor.

[Panoptic]

It's not as messy (it's sticky though) and it lasts longer. Not to mention there's no real performance difference between it and standard AS5.

[Panoptic]

The 8800GT is in higher-than-normal demand because it's simply the best value in video cards since the GeForce 4 Ti4200. Not only are the guys who are looking for high power to price ratios scooping them up, but the overclocking enthusiasts are grabbing them as well. I could see it lasting through the holiday season unless they really start cranking them out, or ATI pulls off something big with the 2950 HD3870.

[Panoptic]

Use Cleartype Tuner when you get it. Just turning on Cleartype by itself sucks.

[Panoptic]

I can't live without font smoothing within Windows anymore, but to each his own.

Anyway, my dad has a 20" 4:3 Samsung TN panel, and I've got a 24" Dell PVA panel. Mine is drastically better at reproducing gradients, however his (contrary to the info in that thread) has deeper blacks when compared side by side to my Dell (which might be the insanely bright backlight in the Dell; his seems to crush blacks ever so slightly, but further examination shows that the sections are just too bright on my Dell). My Dell produces slight ghosting on big solid blocks of color from time to time. Viewing angle is pretty narrow on his, too, though it's also sharper than my Dell (which I find perfect; his is a bit too sharp for my tastes). @ Vinc: I'd recommend the *PVA. Best overall for general use, IMO.

A couple more considerations to make: Most 19" LCD's (that aren't widescreen) will be 5:4 (1280x1024), and 20"s will return to the normal 4:3 aspect (1600x1200). The main reason I'm still running a 24" (instead of having sold it in favor of a 30") is because I want to be able to watch 1080i/p material natively on it. Granted, the scaling circuitry in modern LCD's is vastly better than it was a few years ago. You may be surprised sending a good 1600x1200 LCD monitor a 1280x960 signal from a game.

Also, back when I was working at a computer shop, I used to deploy systems all the time and the shop exclusively used Acer panels. Out of the box, they're fucking horrid, but you can get them to produce an acceptable image by lowering the contrast and playing with the color levels a bit. I'd say they approached the color quality and black level of a Samsung with some tuning, but never quite got there.