Maximum PC

Approximate Purchase Date: Sometime in June 2012

Budget Range: 600-800 After Rebates

System Usage from Most to Least Important: gaming, internet

Parts Not Required: keyboard, mouse, monitor

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: any

Country: unsure

Parts Preferences: nvidia

Overclocking: Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: dont know

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1200

Additional Comments: Looking to play PC MMOs on the highest settings and still run at a high FPS. Also looking to improve over my 2.5 year old ASUS gaming laptop.

Here are my laptops specs:

Computer:
Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium Home Edition
OS Service Pack -
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)
Computer Name OWNER-PC
User Name Owner

Motherboard:
CPU Type Intel Pentium III Xeon, 2000 MHz
Motherboard Name Unknown
Motherboard Chipset Unknown
System Memory 4096 MB
BIOS Type Unknown

Display:
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M
Monitor Generic PnP Monitor [NoDB]

Multimedia:
Audio Adapter High Definition Audio Controller [NoDB]

Storage:
IDE Controller Intel(R) ICH9M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller
IDE Controller Ricoh Memory Stick Controller
IDE Controller Ricoh SD/MMC Host Controller
IDE Controller Ricoh xD-Picture Card Controller
Disk Drive ST9320423AS (298 GB, IDE)
Optical Drive MATSHITA DVD-RAM UJ880AS
SMART Hard Disks Status OK

Partitions:
C: (NTFS) 292246 MB (168514 MB free)

Here's something that may work for you:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($179.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Biostar TZ77B ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Patriot Signature 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($41.99 @ Newegg)
Hard Drive: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 560 1GB Video Card ($167.49 @ CompUSA)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 370 ATX Mid Tower Case ($35.18 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Corsair 500W ATX12V Power Supply ($37.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG GH22NS90B DVD/CD Writer ($16.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg)

Total (before mail-in rebates): $813.84
Mail-in Rebates: $-10.00
Total: $803.84
(Using your selected merchants and only including nearby in-store pickup prices)
Lowest Possible Total: $769.59
(Using all available merchants and including all in-store pickup prices)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-04-29 11:13 EDT-0400)

Just a hair over budget unless you have a local MicroCenter near you... if anything spluge and get the 560ti-448 will be a very balanced system.

cheers

Thank you very much for the reply. That looks like a good enough computer for me! But I've also been wondering, what would be the absolute minimum I could spend while still improving over my current laptop specs?