All i heard was blah blah blah MAPLE SYRUP! blah blah blah.

Yum.

The motherboard is really a question of funds, as in how much do you want to or are willing to spend. A '2 year futures' motherboard with SLI and bits of gold on it can be around $350, while a cheapy one that still overclocks will be around $150. A good compromise for a i5 that you will overclock would be something like this:

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=61183&vpn=P8Z68-V%20PRO&manufacture=ASUS

(Should have said, NCIX is a local computer store to me here in Vancouver, BC, if you're in the US then there's probably better bets, i.e. newegg etc)

Memory had a wee typo in that it's DDR3 memory, at a speed of 1600. i5's and the Z68 chipset isn't particuraly senstive to fast memory, but memory is so cheap it's worth getting a 2 x 4GB DDR3 set for $40 or so (plus you'll have 2 more slots free for when the memory manufacturers start paying us to take it off their hands).

For GPU, again money dependent. A Nvidia 580 can be $500+ and are great cards. Nvidia tend to have better drivers than ATI. I went for the ATI 6970 because I like to run three monitors using Eyefinity (sims/racing games love it, nice and wide perspective and so cool with trackir) and Nvidia doesn't offer that with a single chip card yet and also it's great bang for buck (updating the firmware on a GPU isn't for the faint hearted though, which is how I turned the 6950 to a 6970). If you are spending $500+ on a GPU then it's worth looking at the new 7970's or waiting till April or so for the new Nvidia line.

For OS, yes, anything above 4GB in RAM then you'll need Windows 7 x64 to use it - practically everything runs better.

Final thought - SSD's are probably the nicest improvement for the money if you haven't used one before. I get a windows start-up in about 5 seconds from a cold start on a SATA 6GB SSD.

Oh man, Ajay - the sticky tar oil is pretty good too. Plus the strip mining and dead polar bears get covered by snow most of the year, so there's literally no downside!

Definitely go the 64 bit Uriah

Mobo, i am just using a bargain bin Gigabyte board h55m ud2h, i think it cost me in the region of 130 aussie dollars ( ours, unlike maple syrup ..smell of vegemite , and a combination of the two is like a fairy floated down and died in my mouth. Quite grand indeed.

gtx460 1 gig card. 4 gig ram ( i was silly and went the 32but win7 route ) i5 @ 3.33 and i run with all settings maxed offline and it is very playable.


Edit..if the sticky tar tastes anything like vegemite..then you have me in heaven Frog

If you're eating vegemite, then it does indeed smell like something crawled in your mouth and died... You call it a faerie, I'll call it a possum.

I agree with most of what's said on the previous posts, as I found my needs for better hardware outweighed my need to pay rent, etc... heh

You can get along quite well with a recent chip (mine's a i7 920 OC'd to 4.1), a relatively decent video card (mine is GTX 560Ti, 2gb although I'm not sure I use all that at my 1680x1050 res), and enough RAM to ensure you can give the game the full 3.2GB it can use. My mobo isn't that expensive, Gigabyte GA-X58a-UD3RR, but all in all, I did drop about $700.00USD, it adds up quickly. I can run the game nearly full details, but I have toned down the graphics a bit to delay the dreaded launcher.exe crash.

NCIX has a US site as well.
They ship anywhere that
New Egg does AFAIK.

Your imagination.

Ajay, with regard to win 7 32 bit, I thought all win 7 disks came with both 32 and 64 bit versions, mine certainly did. If yours didn't get onto your supplier. The only people I know that are stuck with 32 bit win 7 are those that bought a pre built system.
@Uriah, for Mobo suggestions for a sandybridge i5, check out the MSI board in my sig, it cost about 115 gbp, has SLI capability, OC's with the best of them and the only downside as far as I can tell is the memory limit is 16GB.

p.s. love marmite, never tried vegemite but I'm pretty sure it's the same thing.

Try this pc, see here under ,

The patch