Cyberpower's "Mega Special 1" looks to be a decent deal to me, but I'm sure there's better somewhere floating out there. This is what I came up with, copied and pasted:
CASE: X-BLADE Mid-Tower 450W W/ WINDOW & LCD Temperature Display + FAN CONTROL (SILVER COLOR)
CPU: (Socket AM2) AMD Athlonâ„¢64 X2 3800+ Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology
MOTHERBOARD: (Socket AM2)Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe nForce 570 SLI MCP Chipset DDR2/800 MBoard w/ Dual PCI-Express
MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)1GB (2x512MB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair XMS2 Xtreme Memory w/ Heat Spreader)
VIDEO CARD: SPECIAL!!! NVIDIA Geforce 7900 GS 256MB 16X PCI Express Video Card
VIDEO CARD 2: NONE
LCD Monitor: ViewSonic Q7B 17" TFT Active Matrix LCD Display Monitor (BLACK Only)
HARD DRIVE: 250GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 8M Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive -- Recommended
Hard Drive 2: NONE
Optical Drive: (Special Price) 16X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR)
Optical Drive 2: NONE
SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
PSU: Enermax EG565P 535 Watt Power Supply (SLI-Ready)
And also comes with Windows Home, but it has no speakers besides the monitor's integrated speakers.
TOTAL: $1180 -5% instant rebate (+ "handling", not sure if they do that or not, but for laptops that have "free shipping" on a closely related website, IBUYPOWER, there's a "handling" charge of $40 or so.)
Of course, a Core 2 Duo would be better, but they're a lot more expensive. If you got one of those, you'd have to downgrade the GPU, motherboard, RAM or hard drive, etc. An AMD platform (not processor) would give you better overall performance for gaming on a $1200 budget. It's pretty much either great processor, decent video card, or good processor, good video card (FROM CYBERPOWER). And a bad video card would be a big bottleneck in gaming. I'm just assuming that that's what you're getting one for. If it's for multitasking/multimedia, it probably would be better to go with a Core 2 Duo build. Or if you've got some leeway on your budget, I'd get one. But really, I don't think that the CPU is normally a big bottleneck in games; the X2 3800+ should definitely get the job done. And the monitor is an LCD, a rather cheap one at that. If you prefer CRTs, I'd suggest getting one off of Newegg. It's not that I disagree with a C2D build, it's just for your budget, it's best to balance performance across the board.
If anyone can find a C2D with a good graphics card, have at it. I'm not the most skilled when it comes to finding pre-built systems. Please don't go complaining and/or flaming me on how a C2D would be better; I know they are. Once more, I just chose an AM2 because that allowed for a better GPU, balancing performance a little.
@coryisaninja: That's my recommendation. Maybe someone can find a good site that lets you get a C2D build with a good graphics card within your budget. Listen to whomever you want, I suspect that everyone else recommends a C2D build. And I most certainly would too if you had the money. Hopefully this was a little helpful. Once more, I'm sure there are better deals than this out there, I just haven't the time to find them.
