I've just about settled on a Digital Storm PC. After reading up on six different boutique PC makers and visiting their web sites, I'm leaning in that direction. Here's what I priced out:

Cooler Master HAF 922 full tower case
Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz (overclocked to 3.4 by DS)
XFX X58 3X SLI INTEL X58 Chipset (supports Triple SLI or Crossfire)
3GB DDR3 1333MHz Digital Storm RAM certified by Mushkin
750 Watt Digital Storm Dual SLI Compatible PSU
1x500MB Western Digital HD w/32MB Cache, 7200rpm (SATA)
DVDR/RW/CD-R/RW DVDWriter 20X/CD-Writer 48X (Lightscribe Edition)
1 X Nvidia Geforce GTX 285 1GB (with PhysX Technology)
Razor Barracuda AC-1 Sound Card
Stage 2 Cooler Master High Performance Cooler
Blue internal chassis lighting system
Microsoft Multimedia Desktop Keyboard 3.0 with MS Optical mouse
3 Years Platinum Care Extended Parts and Labor Warranty
Lifetime U.S.-based technical support by in-house technicians
Lifetime labor free upgrades for components purchased from Digital Storm
Windows 7 Home Premium (64bit)
Free shipping
Price: $2,142

I'm no expert but the price seems fair. My question is can I get buy with this machine for games with only 3GB of RAM? What does Win 7 and most current games require? RAM comes in batches of 3GB, so 6GB is my alternative unless I plan to buy and install additional RAM on my own. 6GB would jump the price by $117. I have no idea if it's worth it. I did read an article somewhere that said there arent' any games or operating systems for games that can or will make use of 6GB. My current P4 with XP3 has only 2GB and I'm running Black Shark pretty damn good. I figure with Win 7 instead of XP, another gig should be sufficient. But I don't know. Any advice would be appreciated.

if you're getting 64bit OS then might as well get 6gigs; although you'll be lucky if most programs use 3gigs. Either way seems like a pretty sweet system for the price; and you could always get another 3GB stick later down the road. Or you can use the extra RAM to make a RAM-drive. Bottom line you probably won't notice a difference between 3 or 6 until games start better utilizing it IMO.

Okay, so you're saying I really don't need 6gig right away. Thanks for the advice.

I doubt you would ever use more than 3 anyway unless you are a huge multi-tasker or use Photoshop and do a lot of video encoding.

But I have two Gb on my rig and it idles at 30 to 40 percent RAM usage all the time with Win 7 Pro 32bit.

I like those specs. I think I would not buy a new computer with out at least a 1Tb hard drive though. Or at least a second hard drive for storage of data and music. A built in drive is ten times faster than a USB drive.

The one thing to keep in mind with Win 7 (and Vista before it), is that it will build up a 'system cache' using RAM that it uses to load various items dynamically to help improve performance.

For example, my laptop with 3GB Ram on Vista show only 17mb free due to the OS using available RAM as 'cache'.

my .02

This is becoming increasingly complicated. I think I should go for the 6gig and eat the additional $117, just so I don't have to think about it. I don't need a bigger HD because I don't really keep pics or download music. Besides, I'm keeping my trusty Pentium 4, Win XP3 for legacy games Win 7 might not run. My P4 has dual hard drives, so plenty of space all round.

Thanks to all for the advice.

Thats seems to be a bit of cash IMO. Are you against building your own system? (Its really quite easy) and will save much money. For under 2grand you could get an i7 920 system with the same case and a ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366 Intel X58 Motherboard, Thow in amn OEM edition of W7 Home Premium, a GOOD 850w Antec Power Supply, 6GB of Mushkin DDR3 1333 RAM, a 300GB 10kRPM Velociraptor AND a 1.5TB 7200RPM drive for storage, one of the new 5750x2 or a 5780 video card... skip the soundcard you dont need it.

I originally went the "botique PC vendor" route. Not I just throw my own kit together. Its cheaper, you get exactly what you want and you learn a thing or two in the process. Cases are built now so cable management is easy.

For a PC over 2K, you should have

more than 3GB of memory,
bigger PSU,
bigger HD,
blu-ray reader at least,
newer and faster videocard,
better sound card,
Win7Pro, etc...

I think you can to better.

Do you need 6GB of ram right now? Nope. Will you? Yep.

XFX mobo? Concerns me they mention the x58 chipset (that's good) but not the motherboard model.

The next gen NVIDIA cards will be out in a few months. Maybe several weeks depending on whose rumors are true. Don't spring for a bigtime video card right now. ATIs 5870 prices have gone up because of the demand > supply. Got a current card that would work or does DS offer a real basic card? Go that way and save the $375 USD for the next gen NVIDIA or the price drop on the 5870 (or an x2 successor).

2 things are big in my opinion... the Motherboard and the PSU. I will never skimp on teh PSU. I only use PC Power and Cooling PSU now and have not been dissapointed. Early on I would throw in cheap PSUs and they do cause issues. Never skimp on quality in that dept. Guod makes a very valid point on the motherboard. You dininately need more info on that. These vendors will throw in cheap where they can all teh while wowing you with the newest chip.

I consider chips expendable. I would never buy the abosulte fastest thing Intel has - as if you wait 6 months you'll save 70%. I feel that its importatnt to gear teh machine to teh game(s) you play and plan to play.

I am running an AMD 965 with 8gb of RAM. Sure teh top of teh line AMD dies not show the same stellar numbers as the top of teh line Intel but its also 100's of dollars cheaper and it still powers thorough everything I have without a hitch. One reason I like AMD for at moment is that you dont have to change motehrboards evertime there is a chip upgrade. That gets a bit tiring with Intel.

You can get a screaming system with an I5, low i7 or AMD 955/965 for under 1000bucks. And aside from benchmark scores you would be hard pressed to tell teh difference. They are all rockin fast.

If I HAD to spend $2000 though I woulds still build the same system and invest in a really nice big monitor or monitors.

If I build myself, where do I get lifetime U.S.-based technical support and three years of parts and labor warranty? If something happens, I want the people who made my PC - the experts - to fix it.

The way I look at it, I could save money by buying used cars but I don't do it. I always buy less car than I can afford but I refuse to go cheap. I want my new PC to show up at my door, without me lifting a finger, all shiny and new-smelling, perfect and ready to go. I want to unbox it like a kid at Christmas.

I've been very happy with the eight PCs I've purchased from companies that specialize in building them. I'm just tired of using the same company with their bland cases. This time, I want a little pizzazz, so I'm looking for the best boutique PC maker. The best for the dollar and quality combo, but I'm willing to pay a couple of hundred dollars more for some pizzazz.

1) I said it in the past: When you guys are configuring systems online, please cut away the clutter from the Specs so the people trying to help you can respond quickly and efficiently to the core components (PSU, Mobo, CPU, GFX). Or at least BOLD the important parts.

2) Now for actually being helpful: That is way too expensive a price for the components.

For my system with an i5 750, 4 Gigs DDR, a high quality PSU and a high quality intel board, on a 4890 GFX card AND with an SSD drive AND with Win7 Ultimate AND with three years warranty I'm paying about 1600EUR which comes to about 2380USD. If I'd just reduce the price of the SSD and Win7 Ultimate over Home Premium I'd already be much under your cost (at around 2000USD). But given that for most computer parts, EUR prices are usually higher than the normal conversion from USD, your system just comes out quite a bit more expensive than necessary, I'd say at least 200 or 300USD too high, on my feeling and experience.

I know the overclocked i7 is more value than my i5 and the GTX285 is slightly faster than my 4890, but this can't compensate for the SSD and Ultimate and additional 1GB RAM and the generally higher EUR prices I'm paying.

From a price/performance point of view, you'd be better off with an ATI 5850 or 5870, unless the GTX285 has dropped considerable in price (it should be priced under or at least close to the current HD5850 price, if it isn't you're paying too much.)

From a pure performance POV that WD 500GB drive will be your bottleneck in the system, I would seriously consider getting a Raptor.

"From a pure performance POV that WD 500GB drive will be your bottleneck in the system, I would seriously consider getting a Raptor."

Wait a minute. I don't see how a 10K vs. 7.5K HD can make a difference in a game in which you're already getting 75 fps? At a certain point well below 75 fps, the human eye cannot detect the difference. I don't disagree that a Raptor is faster than a Western Digital drive. What I'm saying is, with a super fast, over-clocked processor, and a top notch video card, in a 10 year old Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon game, how I would benefit at all from paying extra dough for a Raptor? Most of my games and sims already scream on my ancient Pentium 4, single core with 2 GB RAM, a 7200 rpm Western Digital HD, and a Geforce 8800 GTS 640MB machine.

The software that taxes my system - FSX, DCS: Black Shark - can be easily remedied without spending a dime on a Raptor. Other games that might demand a Raptor, if there are any, fortunately don't interest me. Again, for games in which I'm already getting 100 FPS with my ancient P4, certainly a new i7 system with a GTX 285 will send those games into the stratosphere even with a Western Digital 7200 rpm hard drive.

Besides, I was told HD speed (like SSD) affects the speed at which programs LOAD or boot up. That it makes no discernable difference in a flight sim, for example, while playing it. Where it really makes a difference is in graphics and media applications, and I never do any of that stuff. A aales rep at one of the boutique companies I've been talking to told me that, even though by telling me it meant I would probably order the slower, less expensive HD. I would think they'd want me to spend as much money as possible.

LATE NOTE: I did a reconfig and managed to come up with a Digital Storm system with all of the above components but with 6GB of 1600 MHz Mushkin RAM for under $2,000. It came out to $1928. No taxes. Free shipping. Whaddya think? Should I go for it?

For some games like ArmedAssaut2 and Stalker, which stream environment and constantly swap textures, a fast HDD will improve the smoothness of gameplay, doing away with stutter or micro-freezes.

But that's not the point, really.

The point is that in everyday usage of a computer, the biggest pauses in normal applications are today from the HDD. Know the feeling in XP while you wait for all the tray icons to load so the system becomes responsive? That's the HDD.

Or the way Outlook2003 almost freezes until it has it's mails downloaded? That's the HDD, too.

Or when a mni-splash screen goes all white and leaves white small window on your desktop while the app loads - and the task manager has the process "not responding" - that is often the HDD.

Any system bought today - especially with W7 - will be very fast, but the average mechanical HDD will still give these unnecessary "doubleclick and then wait for stuff to happen" pauses. I hate them, when I want to do something, I want to do it that moment, not wait.

Besides, be a little less agressive in your retorts. If you already have your opinions, there's no point in giving you advise. We just saved you money by giving you a reason to reconfigure the system towards a more realistic price, and I see my estimate of 200 to 300USD less was very accurate. I didn't expect a "thank you", but if you doupt my suggestions why did you reconfig the hardware?

I apologize if I sounded aggressive. That was certainly not my intention. But my head is spinning from all the possibilities and choices in a new PC. I'm getting frustrated, I guess.

Anyway, here is what I found from an article in Tom's Hardware. Basically, it says that this particular 7200 RPM HDD, the Seagate Barracuda 1.5 Terrabyte, is faster than a 10,000 RPM Raptor drive:

"The new 1.5 TB Barracuda 7200.11 is quicker than many other drives, offering the fastest transfer rates ever seen on a 7,200 RPM drive. We measured up to 127 MB/s—more than a WD VelociRaptor running at 10,000 RPM. Access time and I/O performance are clearly dominated by the WD Caviar Black 1 TB and the new WD RE2 drive, but the Barracudas are at least second-place."

Finally, I don't use my home PCs for Outlook. I only use Outlook on my work laptop. I work for a 30 Billion dollar + corporation and our high-priced tech support keeps my laptop humming for whatever I need.

At home, I'm keeping my Pentium 4, XP3 machine for legacy games that may not run on Win 7, and for MS Office Suite 2003. My new Win 7 monster PC, the one I'm trying to configure to get the best price and quality components (I do have a budget limit), will be for more advanced sims like FSX and DCS: Black Shark (and the rest of the DCS series to come), rFactor 2, etc. I've never really had any "apps."

I do appreciate the advice, though. Where I live and work, I don't know anyone interested or engaged in PC gaming. They just play golf. This is the only place I know to go to seek advice from real humans who aren't trying to sell me a product.

No offense taken, it's always a problem with the written word.

If you are happy with the load times and occasional "does not respond" app, then stay with the Seagate. For me, it's my personal pet peeve having to wait for the sandclock - and it's usually caused by the HD.

What about Graphics Cards? Nvidia has CUDA and PhysX, but ATI has Direct X 11. I have no idea which is the best thing to get? With the ATI 5870 you get DX11 but have to buy an extra card to get PhysX. My head is about to explode!!!

well ATI supports Havok; basically the competition to Physx. But in all reality, there's very few games that support either; and probably just as few down the road (at least that I've heard of).
I wouldn't base your buy off of physics support...there's a 90% chance you won't even use it

What price is the GTX285? Unless Nvidia really dropped their price marks, the card is likely too expensive on a performance/cost base compared with the ATI 5870.

PhysX - I've yet to see a game that really needs it. Until someone builds a flightsim with a better flight model using CUDA, no point for me (nicely animated paper blown by the wind in Batman doesn't count...)

Google for a list of Physx games and see if there's stuff you want it for.

There is a massive shortage of the 58XX's in the UK and no one will have any until next year apparently! I cannot wait for a PC that long so I am going to get a 5770 but I have read that it is not as fast as a 4890 but it does have DX11...

Not as fast? How long do you plan on keeping the card?

I'd take the speed over DX 11.

Not a whole lot of DX 10 games, let alone DX 11.

DX11 won't kick in until 1-2 years from now.

So unless you plan on keeping it for 2 or more years, I'd get the faster card.