First post, and it has even some content!

First of all, welcome! I'm just your average guy that loves technology and everything revolving around them... I'm very partial towards Apple products, but I also know my way around Windows, Linux and Android. As of now I'm writing this post comfortably with an Asus Eee pad Transformer and the dock (read: a netbook that turns into a tablet, all powered by Android Honeycomb) and.... wait, I did mention something about this post having content. Let's get to that, then.
You need to know that my main computer is a mid 2008 MacBook, sporting 4gb of DDR2, a Core Duo 2 clocked at 2.4ghz and an Intel GMA X3100 for the video. Ugh. It's not bad, but it does limit a lot my gaming, so after I lost the audio (due to system stress) and watched the slideshow that was Portal's ending, I decided that this wasn't right, I needed a gaming machine. I'm not picky when it comes to Mac models, anyone would be good ideally... but there are space issues, the monitor has to be a tv to allow this and previous gen console gaming and so I'm basically stuck with MacBook (Pro/Air) and Mac Minis. Small Mac Books, to be more precise. And that's bad for gaming, so I needed to take the Windows way! Not exactly my first choice, but the plan was (and still is) to get something cheap and very aimed to my needs, and then when I'll had to buy a new Mac get one with a decent video chip. Right now I'd get the Mac Mini with AMD graphics, but I digress. Anyway I did some research, and figured out my best performance/price set up to play Source games and Minecraft. Aiming for 300€ or less, I got nice results thanks to my ability to assemble a computer, eBay and a local electronic fair.
eBay gave me the bulk of it, a semi-assembled computer with CPU, RAM, Motherboard, case and power unit. A nice AMD Athlon II X2 245 @ 2.9ghz, 2gb of DDR2, an ugly tinfoil (or so it feels) case and a generic 400watt power unit, all kept togheter by an ASRock motherboard. Yes, ASRock. N68-S UCC. Can have up to 8gb of RAM, there is some old integrated Nvidia (something like a GeForce 7025), integrated audio and ethernet, SATA, PCI Express and all that stuff. But like this it wouldn't have been that helpful, right? Right, that's where the electronic fair comes in: I managed to find a GeForce GT 240 for 60€ it's nothing awesome, but actually better than what I was shopping for, a GT 220. It also has 1gb of ram, what more could I hope for? After getting a 500gb Western Digital hard drive, grabbing an old DVD writer and a Windows XP disc that was getting dust at home, the build was complete, an I didn't spend too much. Does it deliver? Ohhh, it does, trust me. Anything  running with the Source Engine can be 1920x1080 with full detail or almost, stuff like AntiAliasng and number of portals still need to be kept low but that's all. Boomer 'splodes and the screen gets filled with zombies? Not an issue in both Left4Dead and Left4Dead 2. Bunch of turrets shooting at Chell while they bounce on blue gel? Kid's game. Mass Effect 2 maxed out? There the line gets drawn, in the Normandy 2 i got FPS jumping from 42 to 29, and that's not good, most likely I would get some stuttering while being shot at, not cool. Solution? 1600x900, and details still maxed out :D
Any game that supports Physx must have it disabled, either that or a slideshow.
What's in this computer future? Well, thanks to the motherboard, that while being cheap and limited, it has interessing features like supporting both AM2 and AM3 socket CPU and DDR2 and DDR3, I'll get a nice AMD Sempron X4 and a GeForce GTX 550 Ti, and the other day I got 4gb of DDR3. Once I'll have it, will this setup fly?
Nope, because the motheroard slows down the bus if it's an AM3 CPU and also because the PCI Express slot is only 1x, but all in all I'll get a nice performance boost anyway. Then later on...... I'll get another motherboard :D