Hardware gurus- need system recommendation!

[Damascus]

Howdy, I've been out of the computer business for about a year and a half, had gotten married, sold all my systems, etc... anyways, I am now finally in the market to buy another system! My last system ( a year and a half ago) was a P4 3.0GHz 800FSB Prescott, DFI LanParty 875P mobo, 512MB DC DDR400, Radeon 9800XT, and it was at the time, one of the baddest systems a mainstream user could get... well, after all this time now, I havent been keeping up with anything, I dont know whats leading the way now (Intel or AMD, Nvidia or ATI, etc). Ive been hearing a lot of good things about the new S939 A64's, with the integrated dual channel controller, and havent seen really anything different going on with intel (except the dual core deals, which seem to be out of my price range). I am willing to spend about $200-$225 on a CPU (I dont think any of the dual core pentiums can be bought that cheap) $100-$125 on a mainboard, $350 - $375 on a gfx card (a couple of people have told me I cant go wrong with a Geforce 6800GT??) and $100-$125 on memory. Total, I have appx. $1100 to spend on a new system.. What do you guys recommend? The system will be used for nothing other than gaming and light internet use (dial up is all thats available). I do a LAN game or two as well, but not often.. Also, when I was in this stuff, AGP8X was the best out, now I see theres PCI-E... is it worth getting? A lot better than AGP8X? If you recommend PCI-E, whats the best PCI-E gfx card in my price range? All my games are older, and the 2 that I have that tax a gfx card the most are Doom 3 and Half Life 2... which really kicked my old 9800XT's butt.... I need something to be able to run these games (and the newest first person shooters) at 1280X1024X32 with all details maxxed and keep a 50+FPS framerate. Any opinions, suggestions, or help is greatly appreciated!!!
Thanx in advance
-Damascus

[Damascus]

OK, I've been doing a couple of hours of light research on gfx cards, and have come up with 3 - The Geforce 7800GT, 7800GTX, and Radeon X1800XL. So far, the benchmarks ive found show the 7800GT to be the cheapest (around $389) and only slightly slower than the Radeon X1800XL (around $435), and the fastest, the 7800GTX ($449). I think the GTX is the best choice, since its (in the tests ive found so far) the fastest in its class, and the X1800XL only barely outperforms the 7800GT, and the 7800GTX blisters the X1800XL... I hope im getting this right... also, ive read a lot of talk about SLI and Crossfire? Does this mean I need 2 of these cards to use them? Or that I can use 2 if I want to? I am only looking to buy 1 card.. and so far the 7800GTX is a little bit more than  I wanted to spend, but as long as it futureproof's my system for the next year or two of upcoming games, its ok. Any opinions/suggestions? THanx~!

[ArchAngelCD]

I like the ATI cards better than the nVidia cards but I just like ATI better. nVidia guys will tell you the same about the GeForce cards. I like the new features in the X1800 cards. The X1800XL is a good card but the X1800XT is even faster but at a higher price of course. If you buy a Sapphire Tech card instead of an ATI card you will save some money. They are the same card since Sapphire Tech is making many of the "built By ATI" cards anyway. I've seen the 512MB Sapphire Tech X1800XL as low as $359 and the 512MB X1800XT @ ~ $469