I'm sure there are people here far more tech-savvy than me, but heres some links and thoughts -
If it's going to be used for playing City of Heroes - or any PC game - buy for the graphics abilities. Don't worry about the word processing. That'll take care of itself. Any PC capable of rendering CoH in Ultra mode will be MORE than capable of handling dinky document processing tasks.
A quick Google using the phrase "Top Recommended Gaming PCs" netted me a few links. As always, caveat emptor.
Cyberpower page Most of the PCs listed here are within your stated budget range.
I keep hearing good things about Alienware. City of Heroes officially seems to like them.
City of Heroes also appears to like Razer. Don't know much about them, but here's their page.
They also appear to like AMD graphics cards. Though I've always gotten by just fine with Invidia.
Here's a PC buyers guide from About Dot Com
A lot of the above options may come standard with any particular PC you get.
Oh - I guess one other bit of advice I can offer. Again - I'm not uber-tech-geek material. But one thing I've learned the last decade that's served me well and extended the life of each PC I've owned:
Even if you buy online - go to a "brick and mortar" store and do some preliminary browsing.
IMPORTANT: Ask the Store employees if they would crack a couple of display cases open for you to look at. The main thing you are looking for? The capacity for the motherboard to accept upgrades. Computer PC manufacturing seems to run in cycles. Motherboards will either have a lot of upgrade slots, or they'll have everything as "onboard" and integrated into the motherboard as they can get. As new technologies become "standard" they are integrated into some of the cheaper machines as onboard parts of the core system. It's cheaper to build them that way and thus those types of machines are attractive to people - and especially companies - on a budget. Companies can afford to buy such machines in bulk much cheaper. Often they don't care about the ability to upgrade because either the machines are going to be doing limited tasks, or they'll be replaced on a regular cycle anyway.
But you want a motherboard with as many PCI/PCI Express slots and extra RAM slots as you can get. See if it has room for an extra drive bay. Check the connection ports. See if how many USB slots it has. More is better. Why? Because you want this computer to last several years. And while parts of it WILL become obsolete, you can keep from falling too far "behind the curve" with upgrades.
My last PC was a single core CPU running Windows XP. It was 4 years old, but I was still more or less satisfied with it. And if it hadn't been STRUCK BY LIGHTNING last year I might still be using it! Because when I bought it, I made sure I could upgrade it. It started with 1 GigaByte of RAM and standard sound and video cards. By the time I was forced to replace it, I had 4 Gigs of Ram on it, a top end Invidia Graphics card, and a better sound card. And it could run Ultra mode Graphics from City of Heroes with hardly any loss in framerate. I probably still would've had to upgrade it by this year anyway. But it may have been possible to do it piecemeal by simply replacing the motherboard and getting a multi-core system, a replacement power supply, and a Windows upgrade. Which would've been cheaper. But I wound up pretty much at the same place when dad gave me a new PC replacement as an early Christmas present. But I had thought all of this out anyway.
This is also one reason why I will never consider a laptop as my "primary" PC. Because they HAVE to be integrated to the point that upgrading is nearly impossible. Or just not worth it. If I ever have the funds for two computers, I'll get a laptop. But if I only have enough for one PC, it's going to be a Desktop.
If it's going to be used for playing City of Heroes - or any PC game - buy for the graphics abilities. Don't worry about the word processing. That'll take care of itself. Any PC capable of rendering CoH in Ultra mode will be MORE than capable of handling dinky document processing tasks.
A quick Google using the phrase "Top Recommended Gaming PCs" netted me a few links. As always, caveat emptor.
Cyberpower page Most of the PCs listed here are within your stated budget range.
I keep hearing good things about Alienware. City of Heroes officially seems to like them.
City of Heroes also appears to like Razer. Don't know much about them, but here's their page.
They also appear to like AMD graphics cards. Though I've always gotten by just fine with Invidia.
Here's a PC buyers guide from About Dot Com
A lot of the above options may come standard with any particular PC you get.
Oh - I guess one other bit of advice I can offer. Again - I'm not uber-tech-geek material. But one thing I've learned the last decade that's served me well and extended the life of each PC I've owned:
Even if you buy online - go to a "brick and mortar" store and do some preliminary browsing.
IMPORTANT: Ask the Store employees if they would crack a couple of display cases open for you to look at. The main thing you are looking for? The capacity for the motherboard to accept upgrades. Computer PC manufacturing seems to run in cycles. Motherboards will either have a lot of upgrade slots, or they'll have everything as "onboard" and integrated into the motherboard as they can get. As new technologies become "standard" they are integrated into some of the cheaper machines as onboard parts of the core system. It's cheaper to build them that way and thus those types of machines are attractive to people - and especially companies - on a budget. Companies can afford to buy such machines in bulk much cheaper. Often they don't care about the ability to upgrade because either the machines are going to be doing limited tasks, or they'll be replaced on a regular cycle anyway.
But you want a motherboard with as many PCI/PCI Express slots and extra RAM slots as you can get. See if it has room for an extra drive bay. Check the connection ports. See if how many USB slots it has. More is better. Why? Because you want this computer to last several years. And while parts of it WILL become obsolete, you can keep from falling too far "behind the curve" with upgrades.
My last PC was a single core CPU running Windows XP. It was 4 years old, but I was still more or less satisfied with it. And if it hadn't been STRUCK BY LIGHTNING last year I might still be using it! Because when I bought it, I made sure I could upgrade it. It started with 1 GigaByte of RAM and standard sound and video cards. By the time I was forced to replace it, I had 4 Gigs of Ram on it, a top end Invidia Graphics card, and a better sound card. And it could run Ultra mode Graphics from City of Heroes with hardly any loss in framerate. I probably still would've had to upgrade it by this year anyway. But it may have been possible to do it piecemeal by simply replacing the motherboard and getting a multi-core system, a replacement power supply, and a Windows upgrade. Which would've been cheaper. But I wound up pretty much at the same place when dad gave me a new PC replacement as an early Christmas present. But I had thought all of this out anyway.
This is also one reason why I will never consider a laptop as my "primary" PC. Because they HAVE to be integrated to the point that upgrading is nearly impossible. Or just not worth it. If I ever have the funds for two computers, I'll get a laptop. But if I only have enough for one PC, it's going to be a Desktop.