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Your budget is easy. I just built a machine for about $850 for the main PC. I had to buy EVERYTHING but speakers...so mouse, keyboard and monitor were separate. Here's a breakdown of my build. I'll notate MIR's afterwards and not reflect them in the total price, as I don't count on them. E8400 3.0Ghz Core2Duo $189 (Microcenter) Asus P5k $135 (Microcenter) Seagate 320GB $65 (Fry's) Corsair 2x1GB 800Mhz $70 (Microcenter) - $35 MIR CoolerMaster CM690 $60 (Microcenter) - $40 MIR eVGA 8800GT 512MB $225 (Microcenter) Antec EarthWatts 500 $85 (Newegg) - $40 MIR Samsung DVD+-RW/DL SATA $30 (Newegg) In addition, I spent $20 on a basic MS keyboard(all I want is a standard layout) and $230 on a decent 22" 1680x1050 Hanns-G(Best Buy). I'm using a left over mouse for now and will probably spend about $35-40 on a decent mouse. Now my build, skimped on the RAM. I have some CL5 Corsair sticks, which are just fine, but not good for OC'ing probably and may slightly affect performance, but nothing significant. Spending a little more on them would be worthwhile if going to overclock or you just have to have the absolute most performance. A better motherboard may be an option. Mine wouldn't boot with my E8400 so I spent $35 on a Celeron to boot, update the bios and then throw in my processor. Other boards were about $30 more to work right out of the box, but didn't have firewire(which I wanted for my external drives) and so the cost to add that as well would about even it out. I figure for another $300 you could make the main box a truely competitive machine. I don't see the point in spending significantly more on the video card for the game types you mentioned. I hardly think it's likely you'll even need a 8800GT for most RTS games. I'm not pushing my choices, just giving you an idea of a modest build that's significantly below your budget. Better deals can even be had than what I paid, but I was on a time crunch.
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