Hey all, I've been lurking in the PC build threads from time-to-time, and now it's my turn to jump in. Currently I work and game on my Macbook Pro via Bootcamp, which has worked well for the last 3~ years. But now I'm at the point where I feel a dedicated gaming rig will do me some good, and I can dedicate the Mac to workstation tasks. I've been out of the PC building world for some time now, as evident by the obscene amount of head spinning when I tried spec something together. Normally I would prefer to look these things up myself, but I'm so far behind that you guys might be able to help.
So here's the breakdown,
Budget: $500 - $600, but would prefer cheaper to more expensive
Main Use: Gaming, and that's it.
Monitor: 1920 x 1200
Games: TF2, L4D2, CODMW2, FarCry2, Mirror's Edge - I'm not looking to max Crysis, but games of this level at max settings and ~60fps would be a huge step up from Med. settings at 1280 x 800 with ~30 fps.
I'm thinking that something like a Radeon 5XXX series, Intel i3/5, and 4Gb of ram would be more than sufficient, but I'm a little lost on "what works with what", and I'd hate to have some unforeseen compatibility issues. I've never used ATI cards, but I heard the current 5XXX gen is pretty dang good. Although some people have mentioned problems with anti-aliasing? Any help would be appreciated.