Wolfram01 said:
Now, price. Here's what I'm getting (mostly from newegg.ca as they had the best prices and selection I could find):
Power: Rosewill Xtreme Series RX750-D-B 750W - $89.99 on sale
Motherboard: MSI P55-GD65 LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard - $167.99
CPU: Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor - $208.99
RAM:
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD5850 1GB - $298.88
Mouse and keyboard: Logitech wireless keyboard and good 8 button (programmable) laser mouse - $108.88
OS: Windows 7 Home 64 bit - $108.99
Total: $1020.22
You're doing it wrong. If you're shooting for a budget gaming system, AMD will give you a solid punch at a lower price. X58 Motherboards are inherently expensive, so by doing the switch you'll shave some more money off there also. Besides, even if you plan on doing a processor upgrade to one of the top of the line processors down the road, you'd have to swap mobos anyway to get into the i7 line since the sockets are different, so hell, might as well save some duckets now, right? Also, you're recycling parts, why are you buying a new keyboard and mouse? What case/power supply are you rocking right now?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103846 - $100 - AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition Callisto 3.2GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131603 - $85 - ASUS M4A77TD AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116754 - $100 - Windows 7 Home 64 bit OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231193 - $110 - G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102878 - $224 - Radeon 5830 1GB
Total $619 - Which is roughly the price of the original PS3. Booyah.
Potentially optional depending on what you've already got:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171036&T - $80 - ProductCOOLER MASTER Silent Pro 600W (which is plenty for this rig)
Now, before you try to compare and compare this to a console, consider this:
A good number of console titles tend to have noticeable FPS slowdowns since the hardware is pushing a game it can't actually run well. They're straddling that 30FPS line and when it dives, anyone with a practiced eye will see everything go into the 20 FPS range. Also, the graphics on a console aren't as crisp as they are on a PC since they tend to use rendering tricks to make things work on the consoles due to the limited power a console can pump out. Also remember that consoles are sold at a loss save for the Wii. Microsoft and Sony make all their money off of peripheral and game sales. Over time as technology has progressed, they're able to offer the consoles cheaper because they're essentially pushing outdated tech that is a cake to produce now. Hence why the PS3 no longer costs 600 bucks (which is the rough price for a budget desktop). You'll also pay 10 dollars more per game than for a PC game, and that adds up fast.
A note about my going with AMD: I loves me some Intel, however, I can also afford me some Intel. If you go with the i3/i5, if he ever wants to upgrade to the i7, he'll have to do a mobo swap anyway and those X58 boards are not cheap. AMD's cpus are noticeably cheaper and pump out decent performance which makes them absolutely stellar for a budget gaming rig. Also, a lot of games these days still don't make full use of quad cores. A top notch dual core will still work great AND save you money.
Now, that was all done without having a clue as to what your current system specs are. It'd be very helpful if you'd post your current rig's specs so that we can see what you have and make more informed choices. It could be possible that you just got carried away and don't need to do a whole lot to your current rig to make it gaming worthy.
To whoever said NVIDIA is the best right now - you're smoking crack, right? Their 400 series cards are terrible. The 5870/5970 from Radeon are the current powerhouses for gaming cards.
Anyhoo, I'm a PC Gamer, but not a PC elitist. My console rig is just as well built up as my actual gaming rig (which is about to get a MASSIVE face lift into the dream system catagory). I'll soon own a Wii on top of my PS3 and 360, so I'm hardly biased.
Now if only the Radeon 5970 would stop being such a ***** to get.