[quote name='ChernobylCow']Thanks SOSTrooper for your comments:
So ideally I'd like to spend about $400ish dollars on a new pc from the ground up but I would like something that is still useful in 2-3 years. How much more would I have to spend? I am going to be primarily doing my gaming from now on w/ #1)Xbox 360 and #2) PS3 as a far backup. So I guess to keep price down I could make the rig less of a gaming one if that would help me allocate funds to make it more futureproof. I'm having trouble figuring out in my head what sacrifices I should make. Thanks again.[/QUOTE]
It's very hard to have a future-proof computer if you're only allowed to spend $400 on it. With $400 you are buying yourself budget parts, and they could easily be obsolete (or at least, not able to run new games at a playable setting) in 2 years. If I were to allocate more money on a certain component to make the computer a bit more future-proof, it would have to be the motherboard. With a capable motherboard, you can easily replace/upgrade the CPU in the future, and you can easily add another video card for SLI or Crossfire setup to increase gaming performance. A CPU such as E5200 is still capable for today's applications; but in 2 years, probably not so much. By then, though, those quad core CPUs such as Q9550 and Q9650 will probably drop to the $100 - $150 range, which will be a very affordable upgrade.
This
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3L is probably what I will recommend, but it does not support SLI or Crossfire, so only one video card can be installed. Something like this
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P, on the other hand, supports crossfiring two ATI Radeon cards. So if you get a 4850 now, in a year or so, you can get another 4850 and crossfire them to increase the gaming performance without having to completely replace the video card.
If you prefer having nVidia cards over ATI, then you might want to consider this
EVGA 122-YW-E173-TR motherboard.
They're going to bring you over the $400 mark for sure, but the price to pay for future-proofing now will benefit you down the road.
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[quote name='Draekon']
He'll probably want something that can play Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 when they come out if my intuition serves me well. A 4850 will likely be able to run it on medium at least, but I'd also like to point out EVGA's '
Step Up' policy that may interest the stingy bastard of a CAG.[/QUOTE]
EVGA's step up program is a bit of a rip-off IMO. The step up price is ridiculously expensive, and you have to do it within 90 days of purchase of the hardware you want to 'step up'. So it's not going to be something you can do in 2 years.