Also don't ship outside USA.....double bummer !!

Sorry about that. I didn't see you are in Ireland. I can help you choose components but I've never delt with any online distributers outside of the states. But wasn't this for akaryrye?

Heres my setup...not the Biggest and fastest but goes well...
Overclocking the cheap E4300 to 2.7 GHZ works well on stock cooling.If i were to upgrade id get a new 8600GTX and a E6600 or similar, but this setup is good performance per dollar IMO

CASE- Silverstone TJ-06,black
MOBO- Gigabyte Ga965-ds3,
CPU-core 2duo E4300@2.7GHZ,
RAM-Crucial 2GB DDR2 667,
VGA-Nvidia 7600GT,
HDD-W/D caviar 250GB 16mb,sata
DVD-pioneer 212 sata,
POWER-Silverstone ST50EF,

I've been building computers for years (used to be an ISP in the early days and used a ton of built computers) and all the stuff I get now is Dell refurbed units. You cannot beat the price. Go to their website and click on refurbed (or whatever they call them) systems. Watch the listing at around 3AM (EST in the US) and there will be some cheap units on there. Warning - there are a lot of people who have scripts set up to automatically buy these cheap systems so know what you want and buy it instantly (don't screw around when checking out) when you see something close. If you are into gaming just disable the on board video card and slap another one in.

what if im building a HTPC, what kind of recommendations do you have?

what do you guys consider "high end games" i have an ATI X600 and it works for all of my games, not like i have a chance to change it though cause its in my laptop.

No it doesn't. :gay:

How big do you want it? HTPC cases are a bit more expencive then a standard case. If you want HDTV out of it, plan on a fast processor as well. The problem is your on a budget but you want a fast computer. Those of us that do that with Miatas use table scraps and piece something together. Bottom line is your not getting anything worth a damn for $500.

I built a computer 3 years ago for $550 or so and I'm still using it, it plays GTA:SA just fine, what more do you need? I'm sure now you could get a really sweet system for $500.

Well i dont care about it being a HTPC case (remote mounting it some where else) And for price lets say below 1200.

Ah now your in a totally different ballpark. Now you can have a nice fast SATA RAID-0, PCIx Graphics with 512mb gddr4, A spiffy case, good powersupply. My tower alone has $2700 worth of hardware in it at the moment. I built it about 6 months ago.

Well I went ahead and bit the bullet finally, and the total tab shipped was just over 800. I just couldn't bear some of the performance cuts I would have had to make to meet the 400-500 mark. My newegg wishlist is here but im not sure if it will load for yall:

mobo: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16813138039
Ram: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16820231065
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16819115013
VPU: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16819115013
HDD: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16822152085
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16817104034
Cooler: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16835150082

also got BF2142 and GTR-2 in my purchase, im pretty excited to get this junx in a few days.

damn man ... seriously how much extra benefit is that extra cost over 1k? Are you even getting a 20% boost in performance at that point?

My machine is ungodly fast. Halflife2 run 1600x1200@300fps, Quake4 and Doom3 >100fps.

As far as your build. Bad mobo choice. Try MSI
Bad hdd choice. At least use Seagate.
Why are you buying a CPU cooler?
CPU? Spend the extra money and get a Conroe
http://www.directron.com/e6320.html

Ah I could do this all day. There's just things about computers you don't skimp out on. Buying a CPU with a dual core is great but shared cache? now you just killed the point of having dual cores. Stuff like that. Your video link doesnt work but the fastest videocard for the money is an x1900-1950pro

It's like a turbo setup. Lets say you buy all this stuff to make 40psi but didn't get rods. Then all that money you spent goes out the window because you can't use it. Same goes if you buy some $400 videocard abd then a $150 CPU. Now the videocard is going to waste. You killed your setup with that CPU you got.