Like eating, little and often is the keyword for upgrading the PC, it doesn't need to be top-of-the-range to play the greatest and best games, and when you upgrade it doesn't need to be the best.
The key to budgeting for a PC is to spread it out over the years.
0) Build it yourself if you can, as it's cheaper.
1) When choosing a motherboard you make sure it will be supported for a few years.
2) Buy a decent but not the highest rated CPU - for games it isn't as important as the GPU.
3) Buy a good GPU, near the Top, but NOT the top. The few extra frames and 16x AA isn't really worth the money 8800 GTS is good enough, even the 8600 if your on a tight budget and have a 19" Screen
4) Get 4 GB of ram, it's not something to hold back on if your getting Vista, (I recommend dual booting with XP)
5a) if you are on a budget, just stick with your old 19", in a couple of years those nice 24" Wide screens will be cheap, they already have dropped a lot in price.
5b)If you live alone use the your HD Screen as your monitor and arrange your setup accordingly
6) with all the money you save from not getting top of the range now in a couple of years use the money to upgrade the CPU and GPU and even a 24" LCD if you wish.
PC should have it's own forum there are loads of PC gamers on this site, and more will be attracted if they had there own place.
There is an impressive list of games that are coming out for the PC, as well as an extensive library of existing games. There is also alot of questions about buying, maintaining and configuring PC's that have been asked on the forum it makes sense for these questions to have a place to go. It would take very little effort to create and be very welcome :)
I'm a PC Gamer (since 1991) I know I would like it.
"..just keep on trying 'till you run out of cake"
