Earlier this year, the folks at Ars Technica set about writing up an ultimate gamer box configuration guide, split into three categories by price.  The goal was to give three solid suggestions depending on your budget, to get the best bang for your buck.  In the original guide, the three systems (Budget, Hot Rod and God) were benchmarked against one another using the same games and tools, so you even had a good idea of what you could expect from your power-hungry games.  The downside to any guide like that is that whatever they recommend in April, will be hopelessly out of date (and hard to find) by June. 

So, instead of just letting their guide gather dust and fade into history, they're working to provide periodic updates to the three configurations.  The June update even ups the ante a bit by really going for broke on what they dub the "God Machine", which comes in at over $10,000 without shipping costs or an operating system.  But fear not, the other two systems in this month's update are much more reasonable (the mid-range system comes in at just under $1,600 which isn't too bad at all).

If you're thinking of upgrading your system, or starting over with something completely new, I can't recommend these guides enough.  They help eliminate a lot of the confusion and frustration when trying to pick parts and guess at compatibility and whether or not they'll all fit in the case.