mongoose

Yeah, the hexacore setup entirely depends on the price.  AMD is going for the "undercut Intel" route, so I'm interested to see what they price them at.  Should be out in a couple of weeks. 
 
Agreed on the videocard.  I do feel that if I get a 5850 then that should see me through for a long time, especially with the choice of crossfire in the future. 
I like the look of the new Nvidia cards, but their price/performance ratio is not so good.  That said, it's Nvidia and they have a knack of pre-empting future technologies/working with vendors on future tech.

Yeah, I agree about the transfer rates.  Definitely getting at least an 890GX chipset. 
 
The core i5 is was actually very close to being the one, but I swayed to the Phenom II for futureproofing.  Everything I've seen says the the socket 1136 is a dead end, which totally sucks.

I recently got a new job that has given me a little bit more cash than I used to have, so I thought "what to buy" ? Perhaps it's time to update my venerable PC which has been with me for some amount of time. 
I'm pretty set on this idea and have been doing a tonne of research.   
To fill you all in, here's what I'm going to be moving from:  Pentium IV 2.6GHz 
       2 GBts of RAM 
80GB hard drive! 
7800GS AGP graphics card 
 
So that's the important stuff.  I know what you're thinking, "holy crap, that shit is archaic!" and you're right.  That said though, it's done me proud pretty much up until fairly recently.  I was able to play STALKER with reasonable settings and FSX. 
So, after loads of research and swaying, here's what the new system will be (I think):  Phenom II X4 BE  (possibly X6 if the price is right) 
   80GB Solid state drive & 1TB storage drive 
           4GB DDR3 RAM 
    ATI 5850 
So, those are the important parts.  Windows 7 as well.  It's pretty exciting as I know that I'm going to see such a phenomenal speed boost and gain.  PCI express/USB 3/ SATA 2/3 all didn't even exist when I built that old system.  Games I'm super looking forward to are Call of pripyat, Anno 1404, ArmA 2, Empire:Total War, Dawn of War 2 and a few others. 
 
Let me know what you think of the system and any other recommendations you guys have.

Without reading the entirety of the original post and subsequent responses, I too didn't like Dragon Age:Origins.  I think it's down to the fact that it isn't my type of game.  That said, I have to agree about the graphics, certainly on the 360.  They look downright bad.  I know that graphical prowess does not a good game make, but it is your first impression.

I like the length of it, and the last stand segment is pretty cool but as for the actual look of it, I agree that it's not too great.  Lot's of cars, narrow paths and re-used assets.  I was hoping for a fresh looking campaign, but that's for L4D 2.  
Still like having a new place to mess about in though, and some cool achievements.

Hey all, I just found a site offering a cracked version of the GB app (didn't even know this sort of thing was happening on iPhone).
 
Anyway, I'm just wondering if there was a place I could report this to, or even if there was anything that can be done at all.
I don't want to post the link for obvious reasons.
Thanks for any help guys.
 
(I'm just heading to work so won't be able to reply till the morning ((GMT))

Out of those, Street Fighter IV hands down.  It's the fighitng game pretty much perfected and looking beautiful.