Hoo boy. I don't even really know where to start on this one. Just a couple of honest statements. First off, to address your question of
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are there any serious gamers using macs?
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I'll just simply say, hardly. Second of all, there is no way that you can seriously get a good prebuilt system that will run the newest generation games well for 1500 dollars. EOS. There's seriously no way. Why is that you ask? Well, let's look at a Dell for starters. I just set up what would be known as a "ready for playing HL2 and Doom 3" system from Dell. Itr's an XPS. I'll let the picture do the talking though.
Dial-up beware.
If you all can't see the picture, let me give you the basic details:
Intel P4 550 - 3.40 GHz 800Mhz FSB Prescott
XP Pro
1GB DDR2 PC533 Dual Channel
80 GB SATA
256MB PCI-X GeForce 6800GTO (probably the most decent card they had on there, considering the rest of the shit was either a ATI X800 SE (sucky edition) or an X300 SE (even worse edition))
Nice "free" 19" LCD in there too.
Total price after all the extra Dell shit: $1,828
The rest doesn't matter. What does matter is that, in all honesty, this is a damn ripoff. Especially for a gaming rig. I mean, for what they put in that system, you can DIY for WAY less! I mean, at least $500-$700 less than that! But, given your limited experience with desktops, I find it understandable that you'd prefer to go with a trusted producer of computers. Honestly, this is still probably the best deal you're going to get if you go with a large company to build a computer for you. There's just no getting around how cheap Dell is in comparison to some other companies.
That said, I'd personally still do it myself, but since you have little to no experience in the building systems, then I would suggest just going with a system like this. It's most likely to be the best value you can get from a large company.