Quote Originally Posted by jimmy View Post
Hey guys,
I am looking into having a friend of mine build me a desktop computer (right now all i have is a 17in laptop that is becoming a dinosaur) I play a lot of games: Warcraft 2 and 3, Empires: Dawn of the Modern World, Rome: Total War, Age of Empires. I would like a PC that can handle all of these quite easily without having any lag. I also would like a large amount of memory. Basically, I'm asking if anyone has any suggestions for parts to make a killer gaming computer... I've looked at Newegg, but I'm completely computer illiterate and i don't know what i need and what will work well for me... any suggestions?

Thanks,
Justin
I think NewEgg actually has some excellent builder guides right on their site. PC building can be a broad topic, especially when considering a gaming rig.

Just about any Intel Core 2 Duo CPU will provide enough performance for modren gaming. You can overclock them pretty easily, even with air cooling, ending up with $300 CPU that runs at speeds similar to a $1000 CPU. The Intel i7 CPUs overclock very easily, but are a bit more pricey then their older counterparts.

Also, consider which OS you'll be using before you cram your rig full of memory. Most 32-bit OSes can only address ~3GB of RAM, so unless you're going to use a 64-bit version of Windows, the extra RAM is useless.

I would also encourage you to consider using a portion of your budget on an SSD (the Intel X-25M is a perfect choice). Hard disks have presented bottlenecks for decades and SSDs finally address this. I reduced my Left4Dead load times by nearly 60% by using an SSD as opposed to a traditional hard drive.

This is only a start, but I hope it helps.