According to Joystiq, the Mass Effect PC spec is:

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/04/16/mass-effect-pc-requires-processor-memory-and-video-card/#comments

 Minimum System Requirements

• Operating System: Windows XP or Vista
• Processor: 2.4+GHZ Intel or 2.0+GHZ AMD
• Memory: 1 Gigabyte Ram (XP); 2 Gigabytes Ram (Vista)
• Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 6 series(6800GT or better); ATI 1300XT or better (X1550, X1600 Pro and HD2400 are below minimum system requirements)
• Hard Drive Space: 12 Gigabytes
• Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers

• Operating System: Windows XP or Vista
• Processor: 2.6+GHZ Intel or 2.4+GHZ AMD
• Memory: 2 Gigabytes Ram
• Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX or higher; ATI X1800 XL series or higher
• Hard Drive Space: 12 Gigabytes
• Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers – 5.1 sound card recommended

 So a buncha people on the forums are bitching as always about PC spec, etc etc.  But I look at this and maybe I'm missing something but isn't this pretty...low?

 Note that this doesn't say dual core processors, it just implies single core.  So maybe I'm wrong but this looks really low to me. I mean 2.4-2.6 ghz processors were out over 5 yrs ago.  In fact my computer which is pushing 5 yrs meets the minimum requirements and isn't that far off the recommended specs because I made 1 GPU upgrade the other year. 

If this is true, anyone else agree with me that the crying over high spec requirements for new games is overdone? 

I think that is pretty high myself. I'm pretty much at bare minimum and my computer is two years old and is pretty good. I realized that I probably would need a newer graphics card here soon but not this soon.
2.8ghz dual core
6800
1gb ram

Damn, I was hoping to run this on my 128MB 633MHz Celeron...

So u mean we now have over 5 Ghz system.?

The system requirements probably mean Pentium 4 2.4 and Athlon 64 2.0Ghz which is quite low for today standards.  But I find the Video Card requirement a bit high because the game doesn't really feature mind blowing graphics.

Yes. Everyone's been rather suprised that the ME requirements are pretty friggin' low.

 You're not at the bare minimum, you have a dual core computer.  The specs are only for single cores unless they made a mistake.  You're way over the cpu spec.  The ram is easy to fix.  Newegg has 1 gb ram for ~$15.  The price difference between new computer game and new 360 game is ~$10 already.  

These aren't that different from AC specs and those were also pretty low yet people complained. I think some people just don't realize that the GPUs these minimum spec GPUs are actually 4 years old.

@cwbys21,

Solution for your Ram Problem: 2GB(2x 1GB) DDR2 800 CL5, with Lifetime Warranty - $40 link

PS - You actually want them split up into multiple slots BTW, it allows your motherboard to take advantage of dual channel. Speaking of, make sure your motherboard supports DDR2, or tell me what mobo you have and I can double check but I'm about 99% sure it does.

I'm set for this game with my E6600 + 8800GTS 512 but you need 12GB HD space 0_0 ?

Recommended
Processor: 2.6+GHZ Intel or 2.4+GHZ AMD
-------
Why does the processor manufacturer matter?
Why do you need a better Intel CPU than an AMD one?
SOMEONE ENLIGHTEN ME!