[fearcain]

Although I am very proud of it overall, my primary goal was to play video games, program, and BOINC it.

Games:
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Dragon Ages: Origins
FarCry 2
Crysis
Supreme Commander 2 (when its out)
Mass Effect 2

I have never played Crysis past 10 minutes on the account I refuse to play it below 60 fps. I can't get into a game that seems to physically be struggling I would just keep thinking I wish I had a machine to play this.

I have not owned an Athlon product since the 1700+ Thoroughbreds, in the last computer I built myself. I have had nothing but Intel laptops since then, the latest being my pride and joy, the gaming laptop from ASUS -> G60Vx. I have never owned an ATi product either or a SSD setup. I have also never owned a high-end GPU. The most powerful GPU I have ever used is the Geforce GTX 260M in my laptop, on par with a 9800 GT I believe.

1. AMD Phenom II x4 965 Black Edition @ 3.8 GHz
2. ZALMAN CNPS9900ALED 120mm
3. Gigabyte GA-780FXTA-UD5 Motherboard
4. OCz Reaper 8182 MB DDR3 (4 x 2 GB) 1600 MHz @ 1833 MHz (7-7-7 21)
5. XFX ATi Radeon 5870 XXX Edition @ 1 GHz w/ HDMI
6. OCz Vertex Series SSD 32GB x 2 in Raid 0 (Windows 7 Ultimate x64/Visual Studio 2008/Office 2007/Jgrasp/Valve Hammer)
7. Western Digital Black Caviar 750GB x 2 (7200 RPM w/ 32 MB Cache)
8. Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium
9. OCz StealthxStream 700W PSU
10. ASUS MS236H 23" Widescreen Monitor (1920 x 1080, 2ms Response Time)
11. NZXT Tempest ATX Mid-Tower Case w/ 6x Case Fans (2x Front In, 2xTop Out, 1x Rear, 1x Side)
12. LITE-ON DVD-RW
13. RAZER DeathAdder 3.5G (3500 DPI)
14. RAZER Arctosa Black Keyboard
15. RAZER Kabuto Mobile Gaming Mouse Mat

On the budget I had, it was either a Core i7 920/Board combination with the ATi 5770 or low-end GT250, only with 4 GB of DDR3, no SSD, and none of the Razer stuff, sound card, and only one HD. My curiosity is that since I have been out of the business of building computers for a long long time, I would ask the opinions of you guys, some of the best/experienced on the internet, if I hit the nail on the head or did I bust? : (