Rahvin

I've got a similar configuration (With an MSI Hawk instead of the 2GB, a crucial C300 SSD, and a Scythe Yasya fan), and it works pretty well. I've only gone for a 500 Watt power supply though, and I think even that is plenty. So you could probably opt for something smaller, unless you want to run two GTX cards at some point. Be careful with the cooler, the graphics card is pretty close to the CPU, and the Yasya almost touches the card -- but it is quite wide. Also watch for possible height issues - don't know how wide that case is, but don't want to find out it doesn't fit. Finally: Even a 'lowly' 560Ti will need reasonable case cooling to stay cool, so make sure there are enough fans in the case. I'd recommend one side fan, and one front fan.

Some notes: Try to get the low profile vengeance memory - will give you more flexibility with CPU coolers. Speaking of which: get a decent aftermarket cooler. Scythe has the mugen, ninja and yasya, which are relatively close to one another in performance. all recommended at their low prices. You don't need an 850W powersupply. 450 will easily do the trick. Get something upscale like Seasonic or Enermax instead. Wireless, I'd say stay away from cards and get a USB-device instead. Easier to deal with, and you don't need external atennas to get the thing to work. But then, I'd wire up tower computers anyway and forget about wireless. Finally, personally I prefer the G400 to the G500. Finally, you might consider putting a mid-sized SSD in, and use it for caching with a Z68 chipset.

In fact, I have such a screen (two, actually, EIZO S1910), and I have no perceivable ghosting in any FPS or other situation. With some early, non-overdriven PVA and IPS panels, ghosting was an issue, as repsonse times were in the 20s and 30s or even 50s of miliseconds. But today ghosting isn't a problem with most screens, unless you get color-optimized screen for the graphics market. These are priced outside the average gamer's budget though. The super low refresh rates are only possible with TN panels, which have are useless for anything else, as they have horrid viewing angles, often terrible backlighting, few and badly calibrated colors, and all too often poor true contrast. But again - the spec values are all crap - only buy screens you've looked at yourself.

Actually, 10-12 ms is still plenty fast reaction time. Of course, it depends on what value they are giving. Reading tests and checking screens out in scores is something you should absolutely do, otherwise you may end up disappointed or paying too much

I'd recommend an Eizo (or samsung, if you're penny pinching) S-PVA panel. Viewing angles are similar to IPS, switching times are better, the Eizo's have low input lag and often better back-lighting. On the other hand, I am somewhat of a monitor snob :-S

Depends on what kind of latency you can get. Usually wireless stuff has atrocious latency and odd packet loss. Might want to look at a combination of wired and wireless, maybe via a sattelite and segregate by latency priority what's going to get pulled in over the line and what over the air. Otherwise try to get a fiber pulled. Probably not going to happen though.

MPS were my childhood heroes :(

Does not work for me. Returns: Patch 1.1.0.8 [EN] should be installed. There being a 1.1.0.8 readme in the steamapps/dcsa10 folder, I assume that is there (also, 1.1.0.8 won't install either) ...Not sure what went wrong there.

You will probably have to measure the output with an oscilloscope and artificial loads to check the ripple values. Those are often linked to noise and also more likely to lead to problems in other devices. The problem is, that measuring that will most likely be way more expensive than a new PSU. If the whine annoys you, try and get a new one (Seasonic or Enermax 450~500W) and see if it goes away. In my experience, having a surplus PSU is always a good thing, as they don't go out of date, and they are one of the components that are the most likely to break during a computer's life span.

Don't discount nVidia either, most of the time some games run faster on a less powerful card, simply by being optimized for the platform. Sadly, I have not yet seen anyone categorically benchmarking cards with the DCS engine... My suggestion for you: The Powercolor 6950 PCS++ which is basically a 6970, for 30 dollars/euros less, and a decent custom cooler to boot. (If you can still find one)

Bad news: It's going to be pretty much impossible to do what you want to do. Maxing out a two year old eagle soft game was never the 600-700 pound range, even back in the original lock-on days. They "planned ahead" with their maximum settings so that it would require next years high-end machines to even be playable. But with a budget it should be possible to find something that will get you something where you can play with slightly more than medium settings. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-210-OK&groupid=43&catid=2040&subcat=1444 with an HD 6950 graphics card and win 7 home option selected are getting pretty close to what you're looking for, and just within your budget. Similar retailers will probably offer similar deals.

Yeah, something like their "best" Enix is also pretty good. Adding a 120GB SSD is one customization to consider though.

If it has to be prebuilt, you might want to have a look at the basic Aurora model by alienware/dell. That specced with the base CPU option, 8 GB RAM and the HD6950 should get you pretty close. If you also spec the 256 GB SSD and 2TB hard drive you hit 2250 dollars, but without the two, it should be around 1500. A total rip-off in every way, but that's the price you pay. here is the configurator: http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=dpcwsx1&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&model_id=alienware-aurora-r3 You probably won't find a computer which has a reasonable price and enough performance without customization to do what you require. Not sure where you are from, so can't recommend much more, but both in Europe and the US there are plenty of custom-builders that will build a performance machine mostly to specs, so you don't have to worry about that.

Neither of those has a sufficiently powerful graphics card for anything beyond low-def 800x600 gaming... Having had a look around HP offers, they have no reasonably graphics cards for any of their boxes.

Graphics memory should have nothing to do with HDD-based stuttering. Could be a matter of not enough RAM or inefficient buffering. Here more memory or a more modern OS will help. Also, increasing bandwidth to storage might help - installing an SSD speeds that kind of thing up nicely.