:-[I am here, in need of help. I am planning on purchasing a new computer, but not a "package deal." I WANT to buy everything seperate and then put at all together. I have a friend that will help me out by puting it all together, but... He said he won't help me buy the pieces and that I should find out the information before buying the items. So, here I am...

What do you look for, for a TOP of the line gaming computer, fast computer, powerful computer?

Basically, what power supply, video card, processor (pentium D?? Is it any good), RAM, CD, DVD drive, SOUND card should I be looking for? And anything ELSE that I have missed. I am an EXTREME hardware newbie, and I would like to learn.
Help! Ok the best thing for games right now would be an nVidia 7800 GTX 256 MB Graphic card. That would be the most important thing for a game pc. These cards are around 500 dollars each. Note that you could also wait a little bit for the 512 MB version wich is really better for newer games.

Dual core is not a good idea for games because it doesnt help you much because games must support dual core. I would go for a AMD FX 57 for a 1000 dollar.

2x 1 GB of memory in dual channel. 2x sata hard disks in RAID 0. And the newest X-FI sound card from creative. New mainbord for PCI-E 16 VGA, 2x sata raid 0, socket 939, 4 banks ddr memory dual channel and pci for sound card.

You figure out the pricing.www.alienware.com - get a gaming machine. It may be cheaper in the long run.