You do not need a $5000 dollar PC to run Bioshock at maximum settings. My PC is only $1200 and even it is major overkill. You can probably get a $900 PC that can play Bioshock with all the graphics on if you know where to look. It depends on whether or not you build your own or where you buy it. A good gaming PC will only cost a fortune if you get it from places like Dell or HP. I'm not saying they are bad, but they are more directed towards mass producing PCs for businesses and schools then they are at making PCs for individual users. Even if you don't want to build your own, you can buy a good gaming PC at sites like VelocityMicro.com and AvaDirect.com. Both of them have excellent customer service and will build a PC for you at price that is usually be almost as low as building it yourself.