New PC or New TV!?

So with an onslaught of cool ass games coming out its is time for me to upgrade my setup somewhere. I am using an old ass CRT for gaming and with developers making games catered to HD TV's it is making new games harder to play (Bastion and Dead Space 2 having onscreen text almost impossible to read). And for PC gaming I am using a pretty powerful laptop, but it is still just a laptop and to play the new games coming out such as battlefield 3 and mass effect 3 to the graphical and performance levels I want I will need to invest in a gaming PC. So I was hoping to get some input: do I pay 1500 for an awesome gaming PC or do I pay 600 for an HD, pick up HDMI cable and save the rest for more practical purchases?

I'm going to go ahead and let Ahmad answer this question as his take will no doubt be much more entertaining then mine.

But, personally, I say you get the TV and leave the rest for whatever it is you do or need outside of games. Chances are its more important then games.

Get a HDTV. 

You can buy the near lagless 1080p Asus VH236H monitor for like $150-$200.

At first I was gonna say PC, but then you say you have a pretty powerful laptop and don't have a HD TV, so yeah get a HD TV and you're good to go.

HDTV, you can get an inexpensive HDTV for a few hundred; also an HDMI cable is like 3 dollars if you buy em on monoprice.

Fuck yeah, PC gaming. I've been stuck gaming on a Macbook Pro for four years. Its been a great fucking laptop for gaming (seriously) but I am just DYING to get a real PC already. I have no job and thus no money, so I won't be upgrading any time soon. It would ease my pain a bit to hear you choose the righteous path of improved PCgamerdom.

I play console games too, but my passion is the PC. If this isn't the case with you, you would probably be better off with a TV and extra cash.

@Dagmar $800 for a PC is leaving out the monitor. I would go for more of a $1000 on the parts and tower and $300-$400 on a kick ass monitor.

Get a super powerful PC and hook it up to your television. 
 
No, don't!!

Fuck yeah, PC gaming. I've been stuck gaming on a Macbook Pro for four years. Its been a great fucking laptop for gaming (seriously) but I am just DYING to get a real PC already. I have no job and thus no money, so I won't be upgrading any time soon. It would ease my pain a bit to hear you choose the righteous path of improved PCgamerdom.

I play console games too, but my passion is the PC. If this isn't the case with you, you would probably be better off with a TV and extra cash.

@Dagmar $800 for a PC is leaving out the monitor. I would go for more of a $1000 on the parts and tower and $300-$400 on a kick ass monitor.

Buy the PC with a nice Asus monitor.
 
Sell your console stuff for a couple hundred bucks.

I haven't checked monitors in a while, so you could be right. I've built PC's for family and friends before and I usually end up wanting to hook them up with $900-$1000 worth of parts. Of course you can go cheaper and still get a great PC, but from my experience building I like the 900-1000 range.

Get the PC. If you spend the money for a good monitor it can double as your TV for everything else, plus you have a PC to play all the awesome stuff on.

i say get a tv. since you said you have a laptop that plays games.

Don't spend $1500 on a pc. Spend $800-$1000, and use the rest of the money to get a decent TV. Or better yet get something that you can use as both a monitor and TV. Best of both worlds.

Pretty much what others have mentioned.

You shouldn't be spending more than 800-1000 on PC. Even a high end Intel build won't run you more than that. Only reason to spend more than 1k is if you're going for a more cosmetic rig or if you just like having the most expensive items. 

Would've said PC cause yo there's some hot PC shit coming out this year. Buuuuuuuuuut. You're playing on a CRT and that needs to go dude. New TV.

Buy a gaming pc and a 1080p Asus for $200 to go with it. It is the best of both worlds. 

You've already got a gaming laptop but you're using a CRT TV? 
 
Fuck, man, the choice should be obvious. Get that TV NOW and then spend the rest of the money on whatever you want to. Or save some of it.

Alright so for those of you saying I can pick up a good gaming comp for 800-1000 could you give me a recommendation on a set up i should get. I was planning on getting the jeff gerstmann setup from when he built a pc on tested, but if I can build one to play battlefield and mass effect on high for under a thousand id be a happy man.

Get a dope with a nice 1080p monitor. The 27" 1080p Monitors are cheap and do a nice job of being a monitor for a PC and they're big enough to have some fun with consoles.

Whatever option you choose, make sure it includes upgrading that TV. I agree with the path of getting a decent PC and then getting a display that does double duty as your monitor and TV.

Both. I got a 40 inch i sit about a meter from, with a beast pc.

@EuanDewar: than

Get a big HDTV.

I built my gaming rig a little over a year and a half ago. AMD Athlon II X3 440 triple core processor at 3 GHZ, 3 Gigs of ram, and a Radeon HD 5770. With the case and power supply and motherboard and all the other jazz, I spent about 600 bucks. I later bought a 23 inch 1080p LG led monitor for 200. WIth this build I have been able to max every game I have played. My most demanding games in my Steam library are Borderlands, Bad Company 2 and Crysis. And I can play those at max settings with no lag at my monitors native resolution. Im sure that my rig will be able to play BF3 when it comes out, but probably only on medium or so settings.

Anyhow, point is, I spent 800 TOTAL on my pc setup a little over a YEAR ago and my rig is probably considered LOW to MID range nowadays, and I can still play everything out now on max or high settings. Hell my exact pc specs could probably be bought for less than 400 now. So my advice would be to build a PC for around 7 to 8 hundred bucks, and spend the other 700 on a nice 40 inch HDTV. You could even find a 47 inch if you look around a little online! Hope my 2 cents helped!

And yes, I will be upgrading my cpu and graphics card when BF3 comes out!!!

Line yourself up with a more affordable PC build and spend the remainder of your money on a 27" monitor or an HDTV somewhere between 30 and 40". That way you get the best of both worlds, play games on your new PC on the HDTV or plug your console into the PC monitor if you go that route. Either way you improve both your PC and console gaming, $1,500 is enough to do both.

I might list some parts for a build tomorrow if no one else has but before I hit the sack, if you're hoping to run Battlefield 3, if it's anything like Bad Company 2 (and it's the same engine so...) You'll want a quadcore. Other than that, 4GB of ram is good. 64bit operating system is a must. A mid-high range card and make sure not to waste money on a higher wattage PSU than you need (don't cheap out, but don't spend an arm and a leg on a 1200W PSU if you'll only use 600.

Easy, buy the TV. It's so worth it.

@Dagmar: Thanks man, I would really appreciate a list, I am not the most knowledgeable about what I should be picking up.

Get a decent $800 TV. Then, spend the leftover money on a Sandybridge based PC. Toss in an AMD 6870, use a .edu address to get Win 7 pro for $29. A i5+Asus board with 8 gigs of ram, a 6870, a good 600 watt PSU, and Win7 should run you under $700.

Hook PC up to HDTV. Install XBMC. Now, you have a kick ass HTPC that also plays all your old games via emulators, has your digital games library, can play PS2/Wii/Gamecube stuff at 1080p. Use your PS3/XBox controllers if it tickles your fancy.