It's a secret!
Ok no, not really. :) I build a new system about once every three years. Got started on this one a little early. I had been used to running iRacing with all the graphics goodies cranked up but as the sim got more and more demanding my framerates started to dip a little low at the start of races with full fields. I hated to turn down some of the graphics options so I built a new computer instead. Went for speed on a budget here, hence the i5-based system instead of i7. The processor I got is value priced but will overclock to 4GHz on air cooling.
Details:Intel Core i5-750 at 2.66GHz (not for long)
Scythe Mugen-2 Rev. B cpu cooler (for 1337 overclocking headroom)
Antec Three Hundred Illusion case (for t3h awesome air flow)
Gigabyte P55A-UD3P motherboard
4GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600MHz
ASUS ATi Radeon HD 5870
Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB (10,000rpm system drive)
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB (storage drive)
Corsair VX550W power supply
Windows 7 64-bit
And soon an ASUS Xonar DX sound card (the onboard sound from my new motherboard is el sucko)
Photos of the build process:
http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/pcbuild2010 It was a fun build. The first one where I've taken care to route cables for improved airflow. It's quick, even at 2.66GHz. This should hold me over for a while. :)
If you guys know anyone who might want some of my old parts, I'll sell them cheap. Would rather not ship them somewhere. They'd make a great start for a shoestring budget build that still performs really well on all but the most demanding games. Intel E8400 at 3.0GHz, Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro, Gigabyte EP35-DS3P, 4GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2, my old case in piano black, maybe a couple other bits.
Found a great new use for BGBs...

[Backstory: the Scythe CPU cooler (aka Borg Cube) is a monster at a low price. Now I know where they skimped - the mounting solution. Instead of securing it from the top, the last step was to attach the beefy backing plate to the back of the motherboard and insert long screws up through the backing plate and motherboard into the brackets on the CPU cooler. Thankfully my case had a cutout for just such an occasion. But I still had to use gravity to keep the cooler in place while using one hand to hold the backing plate up in place, one hand to insert the screws, and one hand to screw them down. I grew an extra hand for this task.]