Maximum PC

that question will be a toss up..P4 & AMD have very good systems, though AMD has taken the crown...

you might want to look at dual xeons....i just built one for a friend with 2 gb of ram and a 2.66 ghz xeon on an ASUS PC-DL deluxe mobo and the damn thing hauls ass....look that way if you wanting mad performance.

also make sure whatever you do DONT GET CHEAP RAM

You say games for the next 2 years, definitely (note that it is spelled correctly) x800 or N6800 then. No question about that.
You want HD space/storage. Tigerdirect.com has 200 gb Western Dig 8mb drives for $99 after rebate. Buy two, and they're still cheaper than the Raptors. Ok, you want a speedier disk/drive access...partition 20 gb on the drives in Mirror formation for reliability, the other 180 in stripe. You'll get a substantial boost in disk access but put your data at risk of loss in a drive corruption, but since you do video (like me a bit with DVD's) this data isn't really critical.
Sacrifice on the CPU if you must, get a 2.8 or 3.0 and upgrade in the future to a 3.x. The 3.4ee is extremely overpriced in the performance ratio to cost.
512 mb memory is plenty (get one stick if possible to allow future sticks since many mobos only have two slots)
DVD-get dual layer if possible. Sony has a DRU-700a that received a kick ass 9, but it's $250. You can't go wrong with Sony's line. For an alternative, again Tigerdirect has one called a Megastore for $79 and $119. at least worth checking out. I have TDK, never a problem, not dual.
Motherboards, I would say ASUS, but I've had problems getting support for my motherboard (P4C800e-deluxe), but it has the most features and such. Look for on board raid if possible. Consider Abit too.
Get a good aluminum case. Preferably one that can take 120mm fans. These run quieter and move more air.

Remember a couple of things, BTX is around the corner, so is PCI express, you bragging rights will be short lived, maybe x-mas at the most this year. I would make this my xmas present since both of these are not too bad of features to wait for.
Jake

You gotta remember, back in the day a good computer would cost 3-5k. And that was pretty normal price to buy a PC. I know cause when I got my Compaq, my sis paid 3k for it. Now it is cheaper, but to our standards too much.

Mirroring PARTITIONS that are on ONE drive will do absolutely nothing for performance or reliability. The whole purpose of RAID is spanning data across multiple drives.

512MB RAM is good, but 1GB is better.

I already suggested a Dual Layer burner for $88...

BTX is not as close as you think. It is still in the baby stages. ATX will be here for a while to come yet. Even if BTX does come out, my guess is most motherboards will be available in both BTX and ATX.

You are NEVER ahead of the game when it comes to computers. You are ALWAYS going to be putting things off if you wait for the next best thing to come out.

Amen. And on a $2,500, it's borderline negligeable to go w/ less.

Except for the $400 budget system, 1GB shouldnt be too hard to fit into most budgets...I have 512MB and I know I need at least another 256MB.

Yeah, and that $400 rig could have even squeezed it in if not for needing a case (and presumably a PSU).

As for your system, same boat here. It's the main reason for appraising my OCZ sticks, I'd really like another 512mb, but also in 2x512 variety.

Interesting point on Dual CPU's, would that help me long term or are the CPU's of today fast enough to last me 2 years?

Remember all I want to do is play games, photo editing etc.

Also I think if I go with 1 CPU, I will get a AMD 3.7 and work my system around it.

Thanks again for all the suggestions.

ElvisG

You can definitely (note that it is spelled correctly) eat up your $2,500 budget w/o going to a dual-CPU rig, and for your intended tasks that you mentioned, the money would be better spent elsewhere.

A suggestion for drives that I just installed myself - and gives me over half a terabyte in storage

First Raid (0) - two Raptors (72 Gig)
Second Raid (0) - two WD JB250's

Install everything on the raptors, use the 250's as storage. I've been running on this setup for about two weeks and I don't remember the last time an upgrade made me so happy.

You'll spend about 700 dollars on this (rough prices) . $350 for the 250 giggers, $350 for the 72 giggers.

Make sure your MB supports SATA RAID. IDE raid can be optional, and match the drives to it. I'm partial to AMD's because for the price they just make more sense to me. For less than a 32 bit P4 EE, you can get a AMD 64. If you go AMD, make sure you get the newer NForce or VIA.

And as far as PCI Express - my recommendation is to wait and let that technology settle down. Even the last MaxPC said the new NVidia's weren't going to be native PCI Express yada yada yada.