I agree with Robert. I think if budget is a limiting factor, you balance the system build to be GPU heavy if your any kind of PC gamer. I supose the one potential arguement against that would be if you wanted to buy enough GPU to satisfy your demands on a single unit then crossfire a 2nd in when the budget allows six months or a year latter. I would make a few things for certain, without a doubt I would have at least two full fuctioning PCIE 2.0 slots on any motherboard I select. I would just want the option to add the 2nd GPU at full bandwidth if I desired at some point down the road. If I'm gaming in 1080P I'm at least going to consider GPU's that leverage either GDDR 5 memory, or GDDR 3 at 256 bit or higher. I would upgrade to a 64 bit Windows 7 install. I would buy at least four gigs or reasonably fast ram, allthough on a budget I would not obsess too much over the RAM specs, all DDR3 is reasonably fast if your not concerned about overclocking headroom so I could let budget dictate there. On the CPU, I would be value minded but at least consider a really aggresively clocked dual core, preferably look at an unlocked tripple, or if you can squeeze it in, a budget minded quad is not a bad option. Keep in mind on current dual threaded games you may actualy get more from a tripple unlocked that you can easily clock to 3.5 per core with a small voltage bump than a value quad that you are sitting at 2.7-2.9 per core on.