I only buy a PC once in seven years (I've only bought two PCs ever, 1995 and 2002). Now that it's 2009, I think it's time for a change. Whenever I buy, I always look at the absolute top of the line PC that I can possibly assemble with value for money in mind.

Unfortunately I'm no tech guy. I have no idea what the good parts are that will give me the best performance/value rating. Could anyone help me out?

Core i7 920
Gigabyte X58- UD4P mobo
3x2 GB od DDR3 ram
Radeon 4890
WD6400 AAKS HDD

OT- but it's better to invest less and change it every 24 months.

Nah, I don't like going out to buy things frequently. I like making things last, as to not waste money, and not to contribute to the garbage problem.

what's that i7 thing?

its kinda hard to recommend something without a budget...

 If you buy top of the line pc now it will be mainstream in 12-18 months and will be low end in 30-36 months and after 5 years it will be pure gargabe.

You don't say what you use it for... games/surfing/work?   If the last time you upgraded was 2002, you mustn't be a PC gamer then.  As even CS:S would struggle now.

You want good performance in games and the best value?

CPU: Phenom II X4 940
Any 780G motherboard, doesn't matter.
4GB DDR2-800
AMD Radeon HD4870 1GB

Performance: Highest settings on resolutions up to 1920x1200.

Yeah, PCs are cheap these days. You can quadruple the cost of that PC by getting Core i7 CPUs, dual graphics cards, DDR3 RAM and an X58 mobo per above, but that won't get you better performance except on insane resolutions like 2560x1600.

EDIT: Realised you're British so removed US prices.

You're a big strategy gamer so depending on your budget some flavour of quad core would be good for a base as it will be good to get some headroom here for those games as they really test this component the hardest out of all the mainstream pc games.

Could you tell us what your budget entails? I also assume you're going to source the parts locally?

- Intel Core i7 920 2.66Ghz Overclocked to 3.40GHz! (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366)
- Gigabyte EX58-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
- OCZ 6GB DDR3 PC3-10666C9 Gold Low-Voltage Triple Channel Kit
- Akasa AK-967 Nero Direct Contact Heatpipe CPU Cooler
- ATI & Nvidia Graphics Card Options
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache
- Samsung SH-S223F/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black)
- Corsair TX 650W ATX2.2 SLI Compliant PSU
- Arctic Silver 5 Heatsink compound professionally hand installed by our technicians
- 1yr Onsite Collect & Return Warranty (Can collect from any address (UK Mainland ONLY) and same day collection possible if requested before 11am)

$877 (Pount incl VAT)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-030-OE

remember to buy a monitor. One guy started a thread asking why games weren't running on his computer and the problem was that he didn't have a monitor