[plug] dual-boot "gamers" machine h/w suggestions please?

[Denis Brown]

Dear PLUG list members,

A bit out of my depth with this one not being a game player :-(

Looking for recommendations for commercially built and supported, 
preferably brand-name desktop hardware capable of good gaming graphics 
performance.   Will dual-boot Lin / Win.

My stock-in-trade is IBM but unless we went totally high-end, 
Intellistation, blah blah blah they don't seem to be in the hunt 
performance wise, and then the price hurts :-)   My next thought was HP, 
something like the dc7600 with a decent graphics card a la items that have 
been mentioned here from time to time.

Background:
An Important Person (tm) in my work environment seeks recommendations from 
yours truly regards a suitable PC for his teenage son for games playing.

The lad has all the jargon and while I can find my way around PCs and work 
stations, spec 'em, build 'em, etc I want to make a sane recommendation 
that is not going to leave the lad high and dry, bankrupt nor occupy my 
time down the track because "you told him to buy these bits and bolt them 
together..."   Hence commercial and brand-name.

To keep this on topic, lad wants to do Computer Science in Uni so he'll be 
capable of some self-help and has expressed an interest in using Linux on 
such hardware.

Principle questions relate to chipset performance for a given CPU, memory, 
hdd transfer rate, clock speed, etc I imagine.   This is where I think IBM 
tends to tread on the cautious side so in general their mobos are less 
punchy that some of the specs I've read.

TIA,
Denis