Kay BOIZ, I just got my tax return back, and I've got money in my pocket.  I'm looking to spend around 1500 on a new build that I'll probably put a 400 dollar gpu in (i was looking at the 8800gts).  Buzzsaw, shigga shignog, somebody,  steer me in a good direction. I hear intel has the best shit now, what kind of motherboard works well with those processors? Or should I go with the cost effective amds?? 
Bear in mind 1500 is the MAXIMUM I will pay.  If you don't help I'll be forced to just pick stuff out and hope it's good.

D Shark

I agree with Charc - there isn't a lot of point upgrading at the moment. The 8800's are fast as hell, but there is nothing that requires that power yet so why bother? They can do DX10 but you need Vista for DX10 and Vista sucks (I've been working on it at work, even after you make it look and act like XP it's still slow) and there is nothing that requires DX10 right now. People like John Carmack are going around saying the next-gen engines won't need DX10 and there is no reason to upgrade. My dual-cored Opteron w/7600GT runs HL2 maxed out and that's personally good enough for me right now.

What I would do:

Put that $1500 into a 6 month CD. You won't make much money on it in a CD, but you'll make a little bit and it'll be locked away so you won't be tempted to waste it on hookers and blow.
Once the 6 months is up you'll have a little bit more money that will go a lot further since more DX10 GPUs will be out and the 8800's will be cheaper, newer CPUs will be out (maybe even the new AMD cores, I don't remember the ETA but I think it's within 6 months), and the RAM supply should be improved as well. All around you will spend less, have more choices, and ultimately wind up with a much better system than you could afford now.

 

I can get you a cheap copy of vista ultimate.

 

If you get an 8800 gts instead of a gtx I will laugh at you so hard.

well if you want to get a new set-up you cant go wrong with a core duo cpu or a core 2 duo. As for motherboards to go with them im not sure have read good and bad thigns about most of the boards out there, but if you want a mb try looking at some asus. As for power supply and get a antec psu at least a 550 watt they have some good ones on newegg for about $100. and get 1-2gigs of ramjust make sure you get dual channel ram and a dual channle mb the it will run better that way. if you have not got one yeet get a sata harddrive and a sata dvd burner you can get one on newegg for like $50 i think was the price of one i was looking at. as for video cards depending on what game you are playing 2 7600 would work but for newer games thats kind pushing it, yes it can run hl2 at full blast but for newer games your gett way lower fps, like titans qeust i have a 6600 gt that can barly handle it to a point then it gets kinda lagy, but that game for just its recomended stuff to have it a 3ghz cpu and 6800. well i have a frind that has this game as well and he has a 1300 - 1600 ati 512 and it cant play on full, but it is a dell comp. You get the 8800 but you wont get the full use till some other games come out later this year, but all the old games you have you will be able to run at full setting and no have it even think of slowing down, or if you want to wait on it, then there is always the 7900, or the 7950 also. If you want to talk to me on x-fire i could help you out more. My laptop is almost always one, and ill leave x-fire running for you if you want to talk and have me help you out and explain and bit more for ya. if im not at on my laptop just leave and messge and ill get back to you. If someone tells you that there is no point in getting a 8800 right now, they my not be but at least you will be ready and wont have to buy anyhting else later cuz you already have it. And you may not have the money for it, when the new games come out also.