You can spend about 500 bucks and have something that will out perform any current gen console. I spent about $700 two years ago and I still get 100+ fps in the brand new unreal engine games.

http://pcpartpicker.com/guide/

If you're new to whole deal you can find a build here and base yours off of it. You really shouldn't spend more than $800 or so because you'll get diminishing returns for your money. About half your money should go toward your videocard. If you don't skimp too much on a processor you should be good to go for at least 4-5 years until you need a new video card.

You'll pay a little bit more up front but you'll save a ton in the long run by not having to play for xbox live and not having to shell out 60 bucks for every game.

When I went to college I imagined I would still be playing a lot of games. I really didn't. I still made a little time to compete with my team in UT2k4, but the scene was dying down. I forgot about most of the new stuff coming out and got a lot more involved socially. If I were you I'd wait until you get there for a couple months and see if you still want it or need to spend that much money. That is a lot to drop on something that you might not use that much and money that could be better spent on things you will actually need. When I graduated I dumped a bunch in a really nice desktop now that I actually have time to play. I have it spit so 2 users can have their own desktop and I can invite friends over without them having to bring anything, it's pretty cool. However, if I spent as much time in college playing games as I do now (or I did in high-school) I wouldn't have as many met people in my life that mean as much today. I still probably would be nervous/awkward around new people.

In any case, I'd wait a couple months to see how your lifestyle is. The worst that happens is you play your xbox or whatever while the price of your hardware drops and new stuff comes out, which is never a bad idea. You probably don't need it now even though it feels like you do.

Oh, if you do get it, make sure you get a nice monitor, maybe one you can turn vertical. When you have to write papers it's pretty awesome to be able to put your source on one screen and your essay on the other.

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For a while now I've had troubles with these little dots called artifacts, red and white, show up all over certain areas during a game. They've shown up on oblivion, ut3, halflife2.. mostly games with better graphics. Someone told me to get something called ATItool and I changed the core to 378.0 and the memory to 360 and that helped for pretty much all of my games. But I started playing Halflife episode one and I still had some dots on the screen.. I fittled with the video settings and they were gone. Then I started episode two and they are all over the place. I turned off HDR messed with the shaders and antialiasing but nothing fixed it.

Heres what it looks like..

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b108/hayden0489/ep2_outland_010000.jpg

any idea why it's only happening for episode two? and how i can fix it?

For a while now I've had troubles with these little dots, red and white, show up all over certain areas during a game. They've shown up on oblivion, ut3, halflife2.. mostly games with better graphics. Someone told me to get something called ATItool and I changed the core to 378.0 and the memory to 360 and that helped for pretty much all of my games. But I started playing Halflife episode one and I still had some dots on the screen.. I fittled with the video settings and they were gone. Then I started episode two and they are all over the place. I turned off HDR messed with the shaders and antialiasing but nothing fixed it.

Heres what it looks like..

help.. :( I don't know what to do.