Ideal computer to run Second Life

In your opinion, from experience or what you've heard, what is the best computer to run Second Life for the speed and price? Something in which you can have your settings up high and still get high FPS?

A better way to approach this question is to define a price range. You can spend $4000 or you can spend $1200, not everyone needs a $4000 machine and you can get the same SL performace for far less. Define a price point you are willing to hit

fast cpu
fast nvidia (no budget cards, least 128mb of ram which on new fast nvidia 256mb is min)
crapload of fast ram

when i first started off i had a 1.3ghz amd 512mb of 233mhz ddr ram and a geforce 2 GTS pro (500mhz +DDR effectivly = 1ghz gpu speed) and got about 15-20 fps, 5-10 fps in a social setting

abit later i went to 1.5gb of 400mhz ddr ram and really jumped, from 15-20 to 30-50fps, 20-40 fps in a social setting ... way up in the sky i could hit about 100 fps

abit later i dropped a amd athalon xp 2200+, bumped up the real speed from 1.8ghz to 1.9ghz and only gained a handfull of speed, way up in the sky i was getting 105 fps

abit later i dropped in a geforce 6600GT, eventho its abit slower mhz wise than my geforce 2 its faster in design and it supports all the new crap (pixelshaders ect) I gained a good handfull of fps, way up in the sky i now hit 120-130 fps, 40-60 fps in a social setting, those numbers are from the linux client ... windows is bout 30-40 fps in a scoical setting

thats where im at now 1,933mhz amd 1.5gb 400mhz ddr ram and a Geforce 6600GT and doing quite well

but in my experiance in SL and hardware it seems to me that

the most important thing is ram, get fast and get as much as your budget allows
get the fastest video card you can, in a reasonable range probally the top end geforce 7 series
and then worry about your cpu, avoid budget chips (celeron / seperon)

also here is a gaming pc shop, you will get a faster pc than dell (compaq whatever) for games/multimedia for a fair price

The basics of one of my 4 PC's consists of:

Dual core 5400+ AMD
2GB 533 ram (matched pair)
2 x SATA II 250gb HD's with 16mb cache each
1 x SATA II 400gb HD with 16mb cache
1 x IDE 320gb HD 10,000 rpm with 8mb cache
18x DVD Rom
CD/DVD Re-Writer
nVidia 7950GT GC
600watt PSU
21" Sharp TFT Flat Panel - DVI connection
8mb down, 512kb up, ASDL connection through a router
XP Home SP2

I constantly get between 25 - 100+ fps, little if any lag (except some minor packet loss when playing SL).

Try IMing Dagger1 Dagger, I understand he builds custom PCs for gamers in RL.