What are minimum requirements for good gaming computer?

For the price cost, and for the fact that most games are bought out by Nvidia to be optimized for Nividia software (Crysis being one)
Ati and Nvidia are on par, even though I have an all Ati system, I have an 8800gts in my other pc, and it's on par with my HD3850 that I have in this one.

 

ATI can run great games. Nvidia just tells companies to make the game 'specificly for nvidia' however this is not true. ATI runs some games better than nvidia

 

Right on.

 

do you want crysis to run at full settings without lag?

 

I can run crysis full settings on Ati HD4850,4GB RAM,AMD Phenom quad core

 

I think my PC would explode if I even tried Crysis... the most my PC can run efficiently is Half-Life 2 on Medium/Medium High settings

 

I would say that this is a pretty good budget gaming PC..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229130&cm_re=i5-_-83-229-130-_-Product

 

Except the graphics are a little bit under.. Upgrade to 9800GT

 

That's a decent PC for the price...
but I would probably end up adding a few more gigs of ram, and a better video card and sound card, since the one in it's integrated

 

It's mainly for people that don't want to spend an ass load for a gaming PC.

 

It actually depends on what kind of games you play and how much of it. Gaming PCs are the kickass versions of PCs. You should atleast have
Intel Core 2 Duo (Quad/i7 is recommended for next-get even though most games these days only use 2 cores. But to most PC gamers, 2 cores is not enough and 4 cores is a bit too much so you can get a 3-core processor by AMD. Extreme editions are also recommended)
3GB of RAM (4 and up with 64-bit) Most programs/games only use up to 2GB of RAM but I suggest you get at least 4GB.)
320GB HDD, games these days can range from 2GB to even 20GB, so get a big, fast Hard Drive.
512MB of video GRAM, Ati or NVIDIA will do. The better ones are good for next-gen games coming out years to come.
And I assume you will go online so get a good Internet card, router, service.
If your going to overclock anything, get good fans. The stock fans usually suck.
Any case will do, as long as it has a lot of air holes because when your gaming, the PC might burst (like my cousins. He was playing Battlefield:Bad Comapny 2 for PC and his PC blew. Actually, his processor and other things on the motherboard got screwed.)
CoolMaster will do like their HAF cases.
either way, some retail PC's that are $1000 will do really but there are a lot of downsides.

 

Lets see:
-A good 45nm dual core processor probably around 2.5/3.0 GHz (i.e Core 2 Duo E8400)
-2 or 3 Gb of DDR 2 RAM (DDR3 is getting faster, but not enough IMO)
-Plenty of HD space for games and apps(probably 1Tb). You might want to consider a backup drive for important stuff or creating another partition on the existing HD. When sh*t hit the fan, all you have to do is backup your files to the other HD/partition and format the partition where you installed your OS. Saves a lot of headaches.
-A good 512 Mb video card
-a motherboard with all the connections and slots you need
-a good case with good ventilation
-a good power supply with enough power for the entire system
-a fast response LCD
-good keyboard and mouse