Take it from the "experts", gamerking345... recommendations are good guides wide & tide for any rides, expansionism features certainly pays up in the long term! Great video link from Thrawn2787, btw.

Reading a MaximumPC article of 5+ pages could only help if you can still find the magazine before assembly starts.

A 285 system is a little out of his budget.

thats it, i give up. all my good deals were canceled so now i cant get what i had without going over 1500!!!

That just means you go back through your list.  Wait a few weeks and toss the stuff that you were getting because of the deal, you'll probably end up with a better setup by the end of the month.  Next time pay attention to expiration dates.

That pc place they mentioned does have decent prices though, you should be able to get close to your price.  The right components through Newegg will be cheaper.

As for supcom.  You'll want to OC the processor if it's laggy.  An AMD 2.8 should be able to handle it just fine, but that game does chew cycles like crazy...

Don't give up.

Take a deep breath, forget the past & hunt down the next opportunities; i know of a few places that will strike incredible deals with consumers for at least another year or until the current recession conditions vanish.

Well, with Newegg in particular, a lot of their deals end on a monthly schedule, and seem to add up towards the end of the month.  So I wouldn't recommend ordering from them on the first.