5 boxing with a new Alienware

[jak3676]

If you're shopping now - here's my recommendations

Intel Core i7 920. Nice archetecture, 4 cores and hyperthreading too. On-chip memory controller helps too.

12GB of 1066MHz DDR3 RAM. Brand doesn't really matter, but try to get CAS latency at 7 or lower if you can.

SSD - Solid state hard drive. Brand and model are very important here, depending what you want to do with it. If you want somethign for your OS as well as WoW, then make sure you get somethign that is optimised for random write speeds. All SSDs are optimised for sequential read and write (all that WoW really needs), but if you want do more than just WoW with it, then start reading forums. Anything from Intel is good, but spendy. OCZ Vertex drives are OK too along with anything that used an Indilinx memory controller. If you just want WoW performance you may be able to get away with a 32GB drive if you do some logical linking. With prices currently, there isn't much price difference between 32GB and 64GB, so I'd get at least a 64GB drive. But I'd recommend a 128GB drive if you want to put your OS and some other apps there too.

Video cards will somewhat depend on the monitor setup you want to use. If you want 4+ monitors on one PC, then snag an ATI 4850x2 - it comes with 4x DVI ports natively and 2GB ov on-board Video RAM. If you don't need to plug in that many monitors then check out any of the $200 video cards with at least 1GB of on-board video RAM. For ATI, 4870 (1GB version) or 4890 is good, 4870x2 if you're feeling rich. For nvidia, GTX 260, 275, 280, 285, are all good, 295 if you're feeling spendy. Crossfire/SLI don't really work all that well in WoW - you're better of spending more money on 1 card than you are to get to cheaper cards and put them in SLI/Crossfire.

As for monitors - I'm loving my Hanns-G 28" WUXGA (1920x1200), but anythign that has at least 1080p resolution is good for squeezing multiple windows onto 1 screen. If you are going for the 1 window per screen setup then go with whatever your budget and video cards can support. I think a popular option is to get 2 good sized monitors and put your "main" on one monitor by himself and then the other 4 can each have 1/4 of the 2nd monitor. Most good video cards can run 2 monitors just fine.