or this i found at a decent price

Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor - Retail

i7 920 should be fairly cheap. One thing though, gaming is NOT a poor man's hobby. That's just a fact of the hobby.

ohh trust me bro...trust me i knows.

the processor i was originally looken at or was told before you guys gave me advice (again appreciated) is about 167.00

the quad above i found for 288.00

so its not that bad, but id problably have to change the MB and the PS but not sure, again noob when it comes to cpu's

How much do you have to spend?

I have my old desktop for sale, haha. i7 950 on eVGA 3SLI motherboard, 12GB DDR3-1600, 2x 1TB hard drives, and 2x GTX295 cards in quad-SLI. In a Lian Li full tower case.

well i was looken to spend around 1200 or less originally, but i figured i wanted abit more so i figured between 1300-1500 usd. What would be my limit depending on factors and if i really wanted a bad ass system no more then 1800 maybe.. id have to see though

Oh. Yeah. Well, I'm looking for about $2,000 on that desktop - I'd cut a deal for a fellow STO player, but I can't drop to $1,200 that's for certain.

ohh common *nudges* u know you want to help a fellow sto player even more by offering it for 1200 wink wink lol just buggin.

Thing is my buddies dad is doin all the looken up stuff "hes a techy too" and hes gonna set it all up for me with out charge and my buddy is paying for shipping and what not. Id hate to cut my buddys dad out. hes done alot already.

If you lived by me I would problably say ahem F it and buy it off yah cause...I really wanna play STO NOW! lol. I think overall though, i should be able to get a fairly decent system now with your guys help and get it under 1800 for sure.

..but ill keep you in mind again thanx though bro much much appreciated. Just cant shut the door on my buddies dad...id prob lose my buddy lol

I will say this, although I don't know if it's the same in the US as here in the UK. I built all my PC's for years and years, until this latest one, which was built for me.

Why you ask?

Because I couldn't buy the parts seperately and put the PC together as cheap as getting a company to do it for me. I would have spent 10-15% more on just the parts alone. Add a 3 year warranty, OS installed and the PC stress tested for 24 hours..... no competition.

It's getting to that point - almost - here in the US.

Problem is, it's hard to find a place that will let you select EXACTLY the components you want. They'll usually have for example 3-4 motherboards to choose from, but it never ends up that they have the EXACT one I would use myself.

Check out http://www.tigerdirect.com ,I buy 90% of my stuff there. And check http://www.pricewatch.com for price or odd stuff,but tiger is best