Please show me this magical PC build for $400 that I won't need to replace with a new $400 system in 12 to 18 months. Be sure to include a motherboard, memory, cpu, graphics card, audio card (although I will accept onboard audio), hard-drive, case, power-supply and licenced version of Windows. Show me benchmarks that will lead me to believe that this system will handle a game like Starwars: The Old Republic above minimum settings and above 800x600 when a guild decides to have a 100 man raid in the zone you're playing in.

Loooool

Splitscreen is more important than ever on consoles. 360, PS3 and obviously Wii have MUCH more splitscreen/co-op games than last generation. Several hundred games infact.

Also I think you've never played splitscreen games on N64 or PS1 or you would know that most of them run with 25 fps maximum.

You can do it with $500 with a PC you don't have to build yourself if you start with a reasonably priced $400 HP with a strong dual core processor and an HD 5670. This is about 40% more powerful than my second system my girlfriend uses to play games on which has an Athlon X2 2.5Ghz and an HD 4670.

Yeah that's great. Games, respect and deals.

Consoles put PC to shame in popularity and fun.

Is that why there are less and less split screen games developed for the HD consoles? The Wii sure gets a otn, but the other ones not so much.

The 360 has loads. Every big 360 has it. Unless it's specifically designed as a single player. Like Alan Wake.

And how long will that be a viable gaming system before you replace it?

Building a $500 PC that can play games is possible, building a PC that has a similar viable life to a console is very expensive.

would anyone believe me if i say i sometimes forget viruses exist since i use linux?

when someoone talks about viruses i lol.

How long will it be viable? Well quite a reasonable length of time. Most new games aren't pushing the envelope and PC requirements have remained fairly static and will likely remain so for a while. I have friends who still game with their 7900GTX GPUs and they are perfectly happy with what they have. They just want to play and they don't care for increased eye candy. They won't upgrade until they are forced to, which will probably be sometime this year. That isn't too bad, 5 years for a GPU upgrade. I would say given the fact that the 5670 is up to date it'll be good for at least 5 years.

When you say life to you mean in terms of length or in terms of ability? Because you can have both for those amounts of money. Of coruse comparable to a console it means that you will not be playing all the games on max. For instance, the 360 and the PS3 would not be able to handle SC2 on max, but you will be able to run them at comparable graphics.