I think the best proccesor is the Pentium4 of 3.06 Ghz, also 1Gb of ram, with a graphic card of 128 Mb, hard disc with 120Gb of capacity at 5200 Rpm, try to buy an Intel mother board and an Intel Proccesor.

And notice at alienware that they also charge $500 for a stick of ram added to their "Area 51" model and call it a "Custom". BAH!!!  

Get the lowest quote for a performance system and take it took your local computer specialist builder or a competent enthusiast and see if they can build a better system for near the same money. Chances are, they will succeed and you get the benefit.

The other route is D.I.Y. and requires a lot of research to match a system up properly. The advantage here is self satisfaction and understanding of your hardware. Another benefit is getting the best computer system your money can buy.

I just built a system for $1150 then rang a specialist builder who quoted $4000 for a similar spec. machine.
(but he was gonna put water cooling on it and paint the case purple  )

I always look for the latest motherboards when I design a new system, it is the kingpost of every system and if you have a mediocre motherboard/chipset it will never perform as good as a decent platform. So, when buying a system, research the mainboard and see if it's up to scratch, if it is........ chances are the rest of the system will be of similar high spec, as the builder has planned ahead.