Congrats Zen. It's always a nice feeling to have built a powerful machine on your own (I guess you didn't install the motherboard though, u just plugged in the easy parts, RAM and cards lol).

I'm very disoppointed though that you chose Nvidia. Although your excuse for doing it comforts me lol.

So what other games are you playing and planning to install?

hehe I had a similar experience last summer, though I built everything from scratch while knowing nothing about what I was doing. Felt pretty triumphant once I finally got it to boot up (after having to swap out a bad memory chip and a bad power cable, blech).

My 9800GX2 or whatever it is also came with a copy of Crysis so I got to see that experience too. Framerate was usually in the 20's on very high depending on what else I had running at the time. Also have a ~2.5GHz quad core and 6GB ram. Looks great when plugged into either the 24" LCD 1200p monitor or the 50" plasma 1080p tv hehehe.

Ok, just tried Very High, and yep, right about 25 fps steady, so very playable, and graphics look GREAT on Very High!! Crysis pwnd.

Card gets up to about 66c with 100 fan on, which ain't bad for this model. Room for overclocking. I had Vsync on and everything to Very High.

I took a bunch of screens but they are 6mbs each, and photobucket only lets you do 1mb at a time. Is there a site I can use to upload them in HD?

Did you save them as bitmaps? Surely they wouldn't be that big if you saved them as PNGs or something.

They are direct screencaps from fraps.

They were as bitmaps, but even as pngs they are 2-3mbs in size.

....What kind of resolution are you running this game at?

I plan on getting Mass Effect, Crysis Warhead, Orange Box, and Grid.

I have played some of those games. I already have The Witcher Enhanced Edition, and World of Warcraft.

Newer games that are must haves I will get on PC if I'm still up and running with this badboy.

If there is ever a Fallout 3 expansion pack on PC, I will have that GotY edition on day 1. Until then, I got 3 saves going on my 360.

Now, as far as DRM goes, Securom has a program on their official website now, that removes Securom 7 or lower and doesnt' cost a charge on a game install, so I figure it's safe to install games like mass effect(which is only about 20 bucks, anyway, so losing installs is no big loss).

Any comments on DRM or my game choices? Any suggestions?

I suggest Good Old Games!

www.gog.com

They have DRM-free games out the wazoo, and amongst the games they have is Painkiller, probably the best Doom-style FPS since Doom II.

If you live near a frys and can return the card to Newegg I'd recomend it (well if you care enough about 50 bucks to bother). I got a a 260 from EVGA from FRY's for 149 just yesturday for the one I'm building tomorrow.

http://shop2.frys.com/product/5636781?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Either way the 260 is a very solid choice. It isn't quite as nice as the 285 I bought last go around but seeing as its way less then half the price (379 vs 149) I can't complain at all. I can have a 2 260 SLI for less then a single 285 at the price Fry's is charging.

That's an interesting hybrid system builder approach you have. Buying a cheap box then taking some parts and swapping them out (graphics card being the main one value box makers skimp on and high end makers overcharge for). I never thought of that, always thought of it as a sort of all or nothing proposition. I guess what you REALLY save on is the Windows license since even you buying that license OEM or with a student discount is going to be a lot more then what Acer is adding to the cost of the bottom PC.

I don't know if you like strategy games, but my first choice would be Empire:Total War, which owns. Also very cool is Dawn of War 2 which is a fun RPG/RTS hybrid (you have a small number of squads that advance in level as you go through the campaign) and looks awesome. For straight up RPG fun I really like NWN2 and the new expansion where you make your whole team from scratch, but NWN is a very love it or hate it proposition like all computer D&D games in general.

You might want to upgrade to Windows Vista 64 bit or the Windows 7 beta (which is in effect doing the same thing without paying) especially if you find yourself wanting more then 3GBs of RAM to do more then a few things at a time.

http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-Cosmos-Tower-Silver/dp/B000ULLN1Y/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1236731255&sr=8-1

With all your cable issues, if you ever fall into 179 dollars randomly and want to buy the best upgrade you will ever get for this and any future build your own boxes, its above. I used to look at cases as a good place to save money on building, but without a doubt the case is the last place I'd try to save after trying it out. The power supply is perfectly placed, there's no clutter, it feels like there's endless room ect.

The only downside is it doesn't have the hardcore hacked feel like The Lurker's box. I had the 80 dollar coolermaster half case last time and its just night and day, totally worth it.