I'd agree that having a decent computer makes all computing more enjoyable, particularly gaming and developing (I run VS.Net Architect and it's as big a hog as any premium game). Some of the specs I've seen mentioned here are crazy out of date - but if it still works for what you do with your computer, I guess that's cool!

My core components are an AMD Athlon 64 3000 w/ 1G RAM, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB, and 120G Maxtor SATA HD and although it's not top-of-the line my PC nicely handles every high end game I play (from MahJongg to Doom3 and provides nice and smooth .Net development.

my ram is ddr dual channel too. and i got the same speakers as you. hooray. my monitor is 17' but not LCD. I know stardock is developing this game for people with less capable computers, im just sayin i thought most of the people beta testing were gaming addicts lik myself. its nice that this game will run on lower level computers. that way my friends can play javascript:editor_insertHTML('_ucCommentForm_comments_txtBody',' ')
javascript:editor_insertHTML('_ucCommentForm_comments_txtBody',' ')

I have a simple system at home: Athlon 700, 256 RAM, 32MB graphic card, sound blaster card...
And paying a few grands would not make it play GC2 alot better


My 2 cents, gaming systems:
It really depends. 2-3000$ for a super-console is quite expensive. It's TWENTY PS2, lots of working hours, perhaps your child's private education, a student's yearly rent, or lots of food If you also use the rest of the computer it's a different matter though, but otherwise it really depends on where you place "playing" in your priorities. And my own priorities say that I'm looking forward to laptops

Lucky you
And you are doubly lucky because now is seemingly the most awesome month of the decade up to now for RTS players: Age of Empires III is announced everywhere and Empire Earth II just got its review from GameSpy (http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/empire-earth-2/606973p1.html)