Growing up, my father always brought home a computer from work. They were always good enough to play games like X-Wing, Tie-Fighter, DOOM and then various flight sims like Aces over Europe/Pacific and Red Baron. By the time Mechwarrior: Mercenaries came out the Dell 200mhz Pentium I had at the time just couldn't keep up properly so I purchased a 3DFX Voodoo graphics card and learned how to install it. I've been building my machines ever since.
My current rig was built in early 2009 but has been upgraded a few times:
Coolermaster Storm Sniper case
Coolermaster V8 CPU Cooler
Coolermaster 1000w PSU
AMD 955 OC'd to 3.7ghz (just can't get 3.8!)
Asus M3N72-D MB
4GB OCZ SLI-Ready DDR2 RAM @ 1066
Palit Sonic Platinum GTX460 x2 (SLI)
320GB WD HD @ 7200RPM
1.5TB WD HD @ 7200RPM w/ 64MB Cache
500GB Cavalry External (backup drive)
Samsung DVDR Drive
22" Samsung SyncMaster 2233
CM Storm Sentinel Advance gaming mouse
Crappy logitech backlit keyboard
Windows 7 64bit
CH HOTAS - Fighterstick, Pro Throttle, Pro Pedals
TrackIR 5 with Proclip
Hopefully this can get me through till March of 2012 without having to dump more money into it. I'd upgrade my MB/Memory/Graphics and possibly Processor next. My current wishlist at Newegg for upgrades would be around 1000
Could've saved a $100 or so if I didn't opt for the OEM Windows 7 copy. Oh well.