For a budget, I'd say $900-$1000, meaning shoot for under $900 so when you realize you've forgotten something there's room in the budget.  I think he also wants a flat panel monitor included in that price.  As for his gaming needs, pretty much just "take over the world" stragey.  Civilization, Europa Universalis, and the occasional economic sim.  He really doesn't need anything to powerful, though I'd like to keep future upgrades in mind.  For a graphics cards, I think a lower end 7-series is plenty.

Oh, and he wants the case to look "business acceptable".  I'm guessing that means black or beige with out lights.  Thanks for the comments so far, I'm going through them to see if anthing seems appropriate.

My brother, to whom I owe a lot of favors, is in the market for a desktop.  I offerred to help him pick one out, or if its cheaper/worth it, built his own.  I've never build a computer from the ground up though, so I'd be very nervous about doing so.  Anyways, he does do some gaming, Civilization and the like, but nothing that requires a monstrous hard drive.  He also doesn't want to upgrade to Vista yet, but wants the PC to be able to do so (so 2 gigs of RAM).  Finally, he wants both DVD and CD burning capabilities.

 I've been scanning sites like Newegg to figure out how much parts would cost, and also scanning sites like dell and Gateway to figure out how much a pre build were cost (and if the difference isn't to great save my time and go for the prebuilt).  However, I'm having a lot of problems finding an appropriate prebuilt PC.  Most places either want to force you to get Vista, include wastes of money like Quad core processors, or are just to weak to reliably run Vista.  Any advice is appreciated.

If you define "RTS" narrowly enough, yes.  There are some pretty different RTS's out there, like Europa Universalis.  Some wouldn't consider it in the same genre as CnC or CoH, though.  Beyond that, there can be subtle differences between the games.  For example, CnC is very Rock/Paper/Scissors oriented, and the proper counters will kill a unit in seconds.  Supreme Commander takes a different approachs, where numbers matter and there are no exact counter units, though some units are limited in function.  Economies can be different as well.  Rise of Nations has you collect 5 different resources with non-combative units, while Dawn of War has you collect requisition by capturing points on the map with military units.

These may seem like subtle differences, but they can change the pace and pupose of the gameplay.

Like anyone was paying attention to Galactic Civilizations II. Sure, it's AAA, but it went completely unhyped.TekkenMaster606

You say that like its a bad thing.  Hype doesn't make game better, it just lets them become more disappointing when they fail to meet it.  Personally, I'd much rather have a high quality game like Dark Avatar to play then knowledge that a bunch of people looked forward to Fable or Invisible War.  AAA=AAA, period.

Any console have that many exclusives of that quality?

During the time of year whem most gamers complain about the lack of ANY notable games, the PC has 2 AAA exclusives in as many months.  Been messing around with Dark Avatar, and it is addictive.

AAA:

AA:

A:

(note, some games lack box art and instead have screenshots, those are Sam and Max Episodes)

Hmmm... I just so happen to have a Steam related question as well, so I might as well use this thread to ask it!

I pre-ordered, pre-loaded Jade Empire off of Steam.  This game is suppose to be activated on the 27th, i.e. tomorrow.  That being said, I usually don't get to sleep until 2am.  So my question is when exactly will the game unlock?  If its right at midnight, I might as well try it out before I go to bed.  If it isn't until sometime later in the day, I guess I'll just have to wait until tomorrow evening to play.  Anyone have any idea?

Expansion Packs FTW. :lol:

PS3_3DO

Odd thing to make plural when only one game on the list is an expansion pack.  And, if the expansion pack is better then most "new, full" games, why the heck not?