I posted this awhile ago now:
http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&boardid=6&threadid=2&id=564821That machine is currently at $1100. Assuming you have the accessories and some HDs and Optical to carry over from your old machine.
It plays every new game maxed, and that is including 8xAA 16xAF etc.
Even Crysis, though it isn't exactly a new game anymore it still seems to be one of the most taxing for benchmarks.
It honestly was my easiest build yet, and the machine I had before was doing just fine and it was 3 years old. To me $1,000 and less than 6 hours of work every 3 years is beyond worth it for the quality and performance of PC gaming.
edit: forgot to note that many of those pieces in my build are overkill, like the 1000 watt powersupply, the 4x PCI Express Crossfire/SLI support, and the humongous case. So the price could be brought down much further and still max all the new games.
This comment was edited on Feb 8, 2010, 01:28.