Tom's Hardware Guide has completed their three day, three build marathon. Day one was a $525 USD low-end system. Day two was a very capable $1,255 USD mid-range system. Day three was a top-end, mindlessly blow your $3,590 USD build. $1,200 - 1,400 seems to be the current sweet spot.They've also used day 4 to do performance benchmarks and compare each system.
Don't forget to leech off the minds of the THG forum dwellers. They do a pretty good job of keeping the author and THG team in check:
Forum Responses to Day 1
Forum Responses to Day 2
Forum Responses to Day 3
Forum Responses to Day 4
One of the posters directs viewers to another noteworthy forum thread: Sanji's Guide to Gaming PCs on a Budget.
[THG] maintains an archive of their how-to DIY articles, which includes, but is less specific than their previous system building guides.
