Quote Originally Posted by inexorabletruth View Post
Shopping online through sites like Tiger Direct or Fry's can get you a workable solution that meets recommended requirements for around $400 (not including monitor, keyboard, or mouse.)

However, it depends on how hard you game. You can get a seriously BAMF computer for around $2,500 to $4,000. It will do everything you could possibly want and more. For top end gaming equipment, look at Mac or Alienware. Mac runs pretty much any operating system these days, and even cheap computers ($500) meet the recommended requirements for most modern games. Alienware runs hot, because they're overclocked, so they have a short shelf life, but they are a gamers dream-come-true when it comes to high performance, precision instruments.
There is absolutely no reason to buy a Mac for gaming, since you can get exactly the same components for around half of the cost elsewhere.