Can you ever. I build a pretty solid gaming PC for less than that...  A few months ago... I got -

(This is approx - one or two components I didn't see on Newegg, so I selected the closest equivalent)

Case: XION Predator Gaming Series AXP 970-001BK Mid Tower PC Case w/ Hot-Swap Enabled Front Loading Trays for SATA HDD

Mobo: MSI 890GXM-G65 AM3 AMD 890GX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

GPU: GIGABYTE Super Overclock Series GV-N560SO-1GI-950 GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready ...

PSU: COOLER MASTER Silent Pro M600 RS-600-AMBA-D3 600W ATX12V V2.3 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Bronze Certified Modular ...

RAM: Kingston HyperX 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model KHX1600C9D3K3/6GX

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX

Boot HD: OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G 2.5" 120GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Data HD: Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM

Those exact components total $1,254, and that build is great - but I was just relisting my system. You can get a lot of those things on sale or look for similar items with combo discounts. And Windows Ultimate is entirely unneccesary... I only installed it because I got it free from my job. All told, for $1500 you could get a similar build with a higher end processor and a substantially better video card... and that system would scream.

I STRONGLY recommend using the nVidia chipset (560,570,580 series) As ATI currently have very buggy drivers. I actually started out this built with a 5770, and it was terrible. all sorts of issues in the games I played... Even older/not graphically intensive games (WoW and League of Legends both had serious issues... SC2 had slight issues). And this was with settings not maxed. The card wasn't being taxed, it just didn't work correctly. I hung with it for a pair of driver updates, but how can the 5700/5800 series still be working through so many kinks over a year after launch? Once I got a factory overclocked 560 ti (HIGHLY recommended - generally the same price as regular 560) everything worked perfectly. No hiccups, no stutters, and most importantly, no driver related crashes to desktop.

Thank you very much.

I want to ask about the monitor. Do I have to decide what video card I'm going to buy first or I can buy any 3d monitor I want?

I want a monitor that is bigger than 21" and less than $500. Is this a good one?

What graphics card should I use for 3d gaming?

I think I'll go with this:

- CPU: Intel i5 760 ($210)

- Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55-UD2 ($180)

- Graphics Card: Radeon HD 6870 ($210)

- RAM: 6GB (3*2GB) ($200)

- Hard Drive: Samsung EcoGreen F2 1.5TB ($70)

- Optical Drive: Blu-Ray Drive - Samsung ($75)

- Power Supplies: Corsair 650TX ($70)

- OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM ($140)

 Total = $1,155

What do you think? Is there any problem?

Looks like a solid build... if you don't mind spending a little more, I'd recommend upgrading the HD to a Caviar black though, you've got such nice components, no needs to have the HD be lagging so far behind the rest. If you just really like Samsung, I'd recommend a Spinpoint drive instead. I have a Caviar black in my main machine and a spinpoint in my older one... very pleased with both.

And I hope you have a better time with the Radeon than my friends and I have. We've all been converted to nVidia  fans over the last few months due to driver issues.

As for your monitor question up above, I have no idea about 3D monitors... I don't think I'd fair well with long spurts of looking at 3D, so I'm sticking with a regular old monitor. (also, a decent non 3D monitor is 1/3 the price)

Thank you!

I went to my local market and decided to go with these components after talking with the people there:

Motherboard: I don't know its name but it's from GigaByte and the best in the market.

CPU: Intel i5 760.

RAM: 8GB (2*4GB) too cheap.

Hard Drive: 1.0 TB from Western Digital.

Optical Drive: Blu-Ray from LG.

Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 570. They recommended me to choose this one over Radeon HD 6870.

Power Supply: I don't remmember tha name of the manufacture but it was a good one. 750 W.

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate. They told me not to buy Premium but I forgot why!

Case: Good and big one. It comes with a lot of fans.

Keyboard and Mouse: This mouse & this Keyboard.

These components will cost me around $2,000.

Wow, a man after my own heart. In the last 2 weeks I purchased both the Mamba and the X6. (Funny story actually, a friend said he was getting one, and I basically said he was crazy for spending $130 on a mouse. And then I looked at the mambo... and looked... and looked... and then bought one 2 days later - mostly due to impatience. I wanted a SideWinder X8, but the local store didn't have it, and I didn't wanna wait 3 days to get it shipped) Good call on the 570, you'll have a hasslefree life with that one.

Oh, and if you haven't bought the stuff yet, see if you have a Microcenter in your area. While Newegg is best for most items, Microcenter will usually be your best deal for a processor/mobo combo, sometimes save up to $50 on just those two.

Thank you for your advices!

I bought it.

I bought Counter Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Crysis 2, and Farm Frenzy 1 & 2 for my sister. I'm downloading them right now.

I LOVE STEAM.

Very nice! Enjoy your new system.

Holy dust bunnies batman!

I was worried that my CPU temperatures were too high (about 73 C under load on a Phenom II X6 2.8 GHz), I opened up the computer and there was a layer of dust between the heatsink and the CPU fan (not easy to see due to the angles of the fan blades).

I blew the dust out and the temperature under load dropped to around 51 C, more than a 20 C drop just from clearing out dust!

I was thinking of buying some Arctic Silver thermal paste, but I'm going to keep my money now...