You might want to hold out for crazy Black Friday deals, but... know exactly what you are looking for (map out all preferred components) as well as appropriate replacements to tell whether a bundle deal is good enough to accept some alterations to the exact specs (if you're selecting certain brand components) you mapped out.

A lot of the DIY combos are good when starting from scratch although it's possible to get just as good a deal on specific components bought separately if you pick up each component when it's temporarily on sale and/or has a rebate. 

Even if you spent $300 on a very decent 24" display, $900 will buy you components for a very capable gaming PC. The only problem with the Wii is you'll need a monitor with component input which is pretty rare as few PCs use such a set up. You may be better off buying a budget HDTV with component and HDMI input.   

Ok I got it. The best balance between price and performance also has to factor in the size of the TV which you will also use to play Wii on. If you wait until Black Friday you can get parts cheaper at Newegg at the same time as saving money on your TV which means if you can wait that long you should be able to get a nicer TV and a nicer PC to go along with that as discounts on both should mean you can achieve better products and you ought to be happier with the overall results and the tradeoffs you have to make in relation to your budget.

Combos are good and I use them all the time to spec systems however they often don't offer extra value over selecting the parts separately because they often include things 'you don't want', well the larger combos anyway. The smaller ones however are more targetted with 2-3 components, you just have to be careful because they like to clear older products that way.

I was about to put together a pretty good Intel machine for $740 after tax, including Windows, and before $60 of rebates.

But then I spotted this, and it looks to have almost the same parts in every area.  Does this look good?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227290

It's a pre-made "gamer PC" for $500 with Windows, 4 Gigs RAM, 3.2 GHz quad-core processor, 1 TB hard disk, and an ATI Radeon graphics card.

That is a very seriously weak GPU to be honest.

I am finally looking into getting my PC built after being delayed from earlier this year due to money problems.   But those problems are behind me now and I am looking to get my Gaming Rig built.  I have decided to get this instead of a new 3D Plasma

So with that in mind  where do I start?  I don't technically have a budget I need to adhere to. I just want something that can play any game at the max settings, but then something that a year or two down the road wont be a pain in the ass to upgrade. Even if its something as simple as adding a second GPU or more RAM. Maybe this isn't a possibility,  just more of a hope I guess. Monitor should not an issue since I will be using my 52" Samsung 1080p LCD.

As for a starting point,  I was originally looking at the "More Power" box setup on the first page. But alot has changed since then and some of the components maybe out of date or no longer available and I would like an upgraded list for what is listed there.  Some of the motherboards listed didn't seem to have enough slots if I wanted to add something like a wireless network card and a sound card. But then again since I really don't know much about the components I may be mistaken. I know I didn't like any of the towers that were picked out,  but I did like a couple Antec ones I saw on Newegg,  specifically one I saw with a clear side to it with a location for an additional fan. I believe it was the Antec 900 or something.

Any help will be appreciated,  I was hoping to get these ordered soon, soon being 2-3 weeks, since it seems to be a good time to do this as there seems to be alot of discounts flying around online.

Am I being ignored or is everyone too busy too help 

Im probably going to pick up one of the Gaming PC magazines and look into the builds they reccommend.   But any help from real PC gamers would help. 

Its finals season so people are prolly pretty busy. 

If you're looking for a powerful machine, Look at getting an i7 or AMD Phenom x6.  Although its probably more power than you will use right now.

Pair the processor with a decent mobo (~$100-$130) and you should be able to upgrade as much as you like for the next couple years.  Make sure the mobo supports the processor and RAM and you're good to go.

RAM is really cheap, you can get 8gigs for $120, so you may as well.

As for video cards I would recommend ATI, 6850 or 6870.  Thats pretty high end though, so you could easily go with a 5850 for cheaper.

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB Hard drives are a good bet, get the 64 MB cache and sata 6GB/s.

Cases are a matter of personal taste, but look to spend around $100 for a decent one.  I like the Lian Li aluminum cases.  They are well built and light.

Look for a power supply in the 550W to 650W range.  You wont need any more than that unless you plan on running 2 high end graphics cards and a bunch of hard drives.  Make sure it has a 5 year warranty and can provide 30Amps.  I recommend Corsair. 

All this is for a pretty high end machine, you could easily buy cheaper components and only sacrifice a bit of performance.

Yeah I was thinking about going with an i5 or an i7,  I have an i5 in my laptop and its pretty fast.

The video card is where I would probably have a tough time deciding where to go,  ATI for sure, but which model and would I be able to add a second one later on or better to replace.

As for the HD,  I was thinking about maybe going for a SSD for my windows drive and going with something like you mentioned for everything else.

You are right about the Cases,  its definitely about personal taste.  I have found a couple Antec cases I like.

Power supply I would need help on since I would be driving blind on that purchase.  

I am looking for a high end machine, since I want to get back into PC gaming.  But I dont also want to spend 2k for a PC,  been there done that.   

But thanks for the help,  its a good starting point for sure.

I built my i7 machine for $1200 CAD ( tax) about 8 months ago, and things have come down in price a bit since then, so you should be able to build a good machine for $1000.  You may want to wait until after the holidays to see what kind of deals are on as well.

The quad core i5 is a good processor, and will most likely suit your needs.  But if you're looking at upgrading in the future you may want to consider an i7 with the 1366 chipset.  This is the likely platform for future intel processors, and allows more GPU bandwidth if you're looking at dual GPU's in the future.  This is a ton of processing power though, and most games are more GPU heavy, so its probably unnecessary.  Up to you really.

For video cards I think the 5850 has a good price/performance ratio.  I have one and have no problems running games at high/max.  In the future you could buy another card and put it in sli/crossfire, but it doesnt scale 0 and is inefficient.  You'd have to decide at the time.

I'd recommend the Corsair 650tx power supply.  Its a good unit and leaves enough power for extra HDD and a second GPU if you want it in the future.

Thanks for the info,  I am looking into building an i7 computer, so the 1366 chipset is the way to go then huh?   

As for the GPU I am leaning towards ATI Cards, dont know which one as of right now

Corsair is the power supply brand I was looking at,  it seems to be a good one with good praise from others.

I think the toughest part for me is finding the right motherboard, and not forgetting to get the little things, whatever they may be since this is my first build.