What's a good setup I can get for under $1000

[Naz-T]

Planning to build a coputer in the near future, but I haven't been up-to-date with mid-high end computer components. Looking for suggestions on what I can get my hands on for under a grand. Games I currently play: wc3, cs:1.6/source. Games I plan on buying: Unreal 4, StarCraft 2. I plan to overclock the video card, cpu, and RAM, so please take that into consideration as well.

What to include in the $1000:

Memory (Looking for about 2gigs)
CPU (still can't decide whether to to intel/AMD, it would help if someone could list some pros/cons)
Video Card (samething here, cant decide whether to go ATI/nvidia)
Motherboard (no preference)

What not to include in the $1000, but could still use tips about:
Harddrives (do they make a difference for gaming?)
Soundcards (are they necessary or will onboard sound do the job?)

Should I wait for dx10 cards to drop in price before building a new computer? and about how long will it take before dx10 cards become mid range priced?

Thanks alot, sorry for asking so many questions, I am trying to research the answer to my questsions myself, but I could always use a second opinion =)

[Malikith]

Planning to build a coputer in the near future, but I haven't been up-to-date with mid-high end computer components. Looking for suggestions on what I can get my hands on for under a grand. Games I currently play: wc3, cs:1.6/source. Games I plan on buying: Unreal 4, StarCraft 2. I plan to overclock the video card, cpu, and RAM, so please take that into consideration as well.

What to include in the $1000:

Memory (Looking for about 2gigs)
CPU (still can't decide whether to to intel/AMD, it would help if someone could list some pros/cons)
Video Card (samething here, cant decide whether to go ATI/nvidia)
Motherboard (no preference)

What not to include in the $1000, but could still use tips about:
Harddrives (do they make a difference for gaming?)
Soundcards (are they necessary or will onboard sound do the job?)

Should I wait for dx10 cards to drop in price before building a new computer? and about how long will it take before dx10 cards become mid range priced?

Thanks alot, sorry for asking so many questions, I am trying to research the answer to my questsions myself, but I could always use a second opinion =)

Well I'll try to answer your questions as best I can.

Pros and cons of Intel/AMD: The pros of Intel is you can overclock these things like crazy if you're into that sort of thing, in which, if you're a overclocker, Intel is definitely the way to go. AMD has the best performance/price ratio. They can't overclock as much as Intel processors, but if you're not a overclocker, then AMD would probably be your best bet.

Now, I haven't touched a Intel processor since I owned a 166 mhz pentium machine about 8 years ago. But from what I've read, other Phoronix readers can confirm this if they know. But I've read that stock Intel heatsinks/fans aren't very good and can be difficult to mount. AMD's since socket 754 have been very easy to mount and have been efficient enough.

So if thats true, if you go with Intel you should probably pick up a aftermarket cpu cooler that supports LGA 775, especially if you're overclocking.

As far as sound cards, yeah, onboard will do the job. The best sound card for Linux is apparently the Audigy 2 ZS but they are kinda hard to find now. Maybe on ebay you could find one. But its really not that important since there aren't any EAX effects in Linux. Just don't buy a X-Fi yet since Creative still hasn't released non-beta drivers that support x86. But will apparently have EAX effects. So keep that in mind in the future as a possible upgrade if they do a good job.

Hard drives, well, as long as you have a 7200 rpm drive, and its SATA, since most modern motherboards only come with 1 IDE slot, you should be fine there. But if you want a better hard drive, take a look at the Samsung 500gb 7200 rpm 16mb cache sata3.0gb/s drive. Its pretty solid from what I've seen.

Video Cards: Well heres where you can either wait and see if ATI's new 8.42 driver is any good or not. Or go with nVidia. nVidia already have mature drivers for Linux ready to go. If you go nVidia, I recommend the 8800 GTS 320mb card. If you go ATI, I recommend the HD 2900 Pro. Its cheaper than the 8800 GTS and in alot of benchmarks, out performs it and has 512mb memory and 512-bit interface, but again, Linux drivers are iffy, but there are some new drivers coming out, question is, will they be any good? If you have faith in AMD/ATI, wait. If they aren't any good, then I'd go nVidia.

And as far as buying a cpu, if you go AMD, I'd shoot for either a 5000+ X2 or a 6000+ X2, Intel, I don't know if I'd buy the Q6600 which is a quad core, unless you do encoding and stuff, or just want to be prepared for anything that may use more than 2 cores. Or just buy a E6550 dual core and either overclock it or run it stock.

Memory wise, if you're shopping on newegg, I'd just try to find the pair with the best reviews and best price for you. Best deal I've seen on memory is this stuff and its apparently very reliable and compatible, runs well too:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211066

But if you're overclocking then I'd look at something else. As far as memory.

As far as DX10, if you're going to be running Windows, I guess this is somewhat important. I don't think DX10 cards are really going to drop in price anytime soon. And there have been no rumors of that so I think that about wraps that up.

If you're not going to use Windows, then there is no question .

I hope that all made sense, if you have any more questions or need more specific answers, let me know.