As per title I know I'm not in the position to do anything with my PC now but it's becoming increasingly evident I am will have to soon. I'm on the bleeding edge of what I consider playable for Shogun 2, cryostasis and civ 5, and now I see that I'm a gnat's breath away from being the minimum spec for Witcher 2. My PC has gone from being froggy's beast to froggy's arthritic old cat; I'm heartbroken as I have loved this machine since the day I first hit the on button, it's been such a good match for me.

I want to get an idea of what's out there suitable for my preferences, and get an idea of how much it may cost overall. I absolutely can't do anything now. Yes, I know prices and parts change all the time so by the time I come to build it will be different; like I say I want to get an idea. I'm entirely out of touch with the tech market, I've basically ignored it for most of the last 4 years.

Here's the score:

I would be looking at partially building myself unless there is an amazing prebuilt system which offers what I want, which is unlikely. While I am happy to add RAM, video card, hard drives and so on, I refuse to do CPUs or motherboards; I would be starting with a pre-built barebones bundle.

What I have now. Core2duo E6600 @ 2.4ghz, BFG geforce 8800GTS 640MB, 6GB DDR2 RAM, windows 7 64bit. I can re-use the hard drives from this machine as they are very good, and the version of windows 7 is a full one which can be installed on new systems.

Yes, I have considered overclocking as a short term fix. It doesn't work. No matter what I try the PC locks up within minutes every single time, and I was attempting it under the guidance of an expert friend. The RAM is overclocked; the GPU comes out of the box overclocked.

Yes, I have considered upgrading. I'd need to do a CPU upgrade and I'm not happy about fitting them. I'd also then need to do a GPU upgrade, and at that point I'm most of the way to a new PC anyway but without the bonuses of a new motherboard and BIOS.

What I demand from my PC:

*Future proof. I dislike rebuilding or upgrading every year or two. This machine lasted me 3 years without change, and is now 4 years old with only a single RAM boost. That's how I like them. It's often false economy to make a PC that's OK for a year or two and then needs upgrading, and it's definitely a lot of bother I don't want. I'm not going to build something that will be strong for 6 months and then start needing options turning down, but nor am I wanting to go ultra bleeding edge.

*Grunt power. I throw a lot of large text files and so on around; that takes more oomph than you'd expect. I do a lot of multitasking. The games I play tend to be CPU oriented strategy games. Strong CPU is important. I want intel; I do not want the alternatives. Too many known problems for older games which I still want to play.

*Graphics. My eyes are very picky and there are a lot of things on PCs which upset them. Combination of contact lenses and bad eye sight I guess. Jaggy edges. Anything at all which is blurry, however slightly. Low frame rates. Certain types of crap water textures. Low res textures displayed in certain fashions. Lots more. Once my hardware reaches the point where it can't run things on max I have to begin balancing performance versus eye ache, not performance versus pretty like most people. You'd think modern games would be better at running tolerably on low settings but they're not, they're actually proving worse than ones 10 years old! Too much blurring as you turn textures down. Shogun 2's fuzzy unit sprites are giving me ocular unhappiness in battles.

So assume a good large amount of grunt power is required as that will keep my eyes happy for a few years ahead.

I've had cards by both nvidea and ATI and liked them. I have had more nvidea cards though, and in some areas I know nvidea comes out ahead for compatibility on older games which I own. If nothing else I know that all my games except STW and MTW work with current nvidea drivers, whereas I remember seeing people with ATI cards having problems with some of them; that makes me look in nvidea's direction again now.

*RAM. Minimum of 6GB, maybe 8GB since it's cheap and always useful.

*Sound. I am happy to use onboard sound provided it is decent as I only have desktop stereo speakers.

*Monitor. I need a new one as my current one appears to be slowly dying. I do not get on with big monitors, yet more eye strain problems. My current is 17 inch and I don't want much bigger than that although I do think I would go widescreen if I got a new one, so say around 19 inch.

*Quiet. Due to my setup I have to sit right next to the PC tower. I have good hearing. I hate noise. It needs to be a quiet machine.

*I'd prefer it if the machine didn't kill my electricity bill. Efficient parts are good parts.

So gurus, what sort of things are out there for a modern day froggy's beast? :prepares to be horrified: