advice pls: best gaming rig for under $1500

I agree with the above posts - if you are just gaming minded go with an AM3 build, triple or quad, get 4 gb of DDR3 RAM (double that in a yr or two if you want, but no need for it now) a good AMD mobo is currently the best "future proof" since AMD is committed to reverse compatibility more than Intel (for now anyway), and they are generally abit cheaper too. a 9800 GTX or HD 4850 will suffice for AION and most other games out now (on a 20" LCD esp), then get a new GPU when the around the corner new models come out. Invest in a good case and PSU and your pretty much set.

You should be able to do all that for around $800 without too much trouble. For $1500 you can build a bleeding edge gaming computer if you want to. For Example I put together a AM3 gaming rig with Triple SLI 275 GTX and 8 GB RAM a fancy case, big time PSU and dual boot with Vista and XP both and the cost was just a hair over $1600 - before rebates..... It was made to game at 5400 x 1050 resolution, so you could build something to play whatever you want at a 20" LCDs res. for far less.

For under $1500 i think this is your best bet.

ASUS G71GX-RX05 -- it came out like July 19th

~2.53GHz dual core processor
~17.1" 1440x900 screen
~6GB RAM
~500GB Hard drive
~NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M graphics card (1GB GDDR3 dedicated)

Plus... it has facial recognition for security lol.
Downside is battery life. ~3hrs max depending on ur settings

Price: $1,300 American (although my local best buy has them for $1,149)

Learn to love this site
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/

If you really need portability, spend like $400-500 on a cheap laptop and pour the rest of the money on a desktop. A desktop always wins in all aspects except portability, of course.

Another piece of advice is to plan how your going to cool your rig. Cooling is unimportant at low to mid range systems, but once you start running multiple cores and high end video cards, your going to be cooking eggs on your case . And heat is never good for your system.

And don't underestimate the Hard Drive! Higher RPMs = faster data access. Or go SDD and put those mechanical drives in their places

Plus, there is really no need to go into i7 in this day and age. The top of the line i7 would set you back $1k x_x.... Nothing out in the market will need that much processing power, and only things short of government top secret super computers should have any interest with them.