Shopping Headache

What resolution would you like to play CS:S?

Do you already have a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers that you are willing to use?

What games do you see yourself playing in the future?

Judging from what you have said so far I could show you a build for $600

$1k USD for a GPU, CPU, PS, case, motherboard, and RAM will get you a monster of a machine.

Cooler Master Centurion 534 case: $50

Corsair HX520w power supply: $100

Gigabyte GA-P35 DS3R motherboard: $130

2x1GB DDR2 800 RAM: $80 (depending on which brand you like - I prefer Crucial, but Corsair, Patriot, Geil, G.Skill, and Kingston are all good as well)

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600: $225

Video card depends on you - an HD2900XT will likely push you around $40 over budget (after mail-in-rebates you should be fine), or a 640MB 8800GTS will keep you under $1k. If you want to push things down to $900 or so, and have a monitor smaller than 22", pick up a 320MB 8800GTS, and you likely won't notice the difference. Do be aware that every version of the HD2900XT does still come with the Orange Box, which is at least $40 worth of games. If you like Half-Life 2, that's a good thing to consider. To choose between the cards though, just look up some benchmarks.

One thing I forgot to add in. Im planning on ordering all the parts from tiger direct. PiPbOY0

Is this because you're in Canada, because there are cheaper places for US reisdents.