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Alex, a few pointers to look at, solid state hard drives are fast - expensive, but fast, maybe fit one for the operating system and running software, then have a decent size conventional hard drive as file storage.
you will want a 64 bit operating system with as much fast memory as possible.
For a really good gaming machine you will probably need to spend nearly as much on the graphics card as the rest of the machine - a great CAD computer needs similar specs to a good gaming machine, we once spent £500 on graphics cards for our CAD machines (the difference between rendering at 20 frames per second and 50 frames per second).
nowadays a lot of large screen TV's can be used as computer monitors, but sometimes its worth getting a dedicated large screen monitor (I now use a 24" monitor at work for CAD).
you should be able to buy the components for a good game machine as a kit. Dont forget the power supply, if you are going to fit an expensive graphics card, the power supply needs to be able to handle it with capacity to spare (we fitted new graphics cards to machines, then blew the power supply just by plugging something into the usb socket).
Yes I did get your PM, I am looking at building a model of a wooden norfolk broads cruiser at the moment 1/12 scale 40" model, it will be a slow process as I dont get a lot of spare time.
I still remember that mount we designed, amazngly one of the local astronomy mount motorising companies locally took up the idea of using toothed drive belts to minimise backlash that we looked at (and this guy builds drive systems for professional mounts) like you I am glad that some of my ideas have worked their way into mainstream use.
Grendel
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