Building a Gaming Rig -- Need Some Help!

Hey. I've been having some computer problems recently and because my computer is out of date and some of the parts like my DVD drive aren't working I'm going to be building my own computer because I hear it's the less expensive route, getting more for your money and having the pride of saying that you built your own system. I used to do a lot of reasearch about building a gaming rig back when I was mixing and matching parts with my old computer bringing it up-to-date. Sadly, because my comp has been doing so well I didn't bother to keep up-to-date with today's technology leaving me on NewEgg.com or ZipZoomFly.com totally lost. I have no idea what these products are doing for me.

So I basically have $2,000, maybe more. I'm really looking for the $1,500 ballpark but if I have to upgrade to give myself some crucial parts, I'll do it.

Can someone help me out here? What Power Supply should I get? AMD dual-core or Intel P4... or, something else? Physics Proccesing Unit?

I mean, I'm so out of date... when I saw PCI-Express instead of AGP I had no idea what's going on.

I don't know where to start in terms of getting parts... and cooling the thing (not gonna do overclocking no matter what) is another story.

Thank you for your help.

 

i find that checking out people's wishlists on new egg is fun and might help you out a bit:

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/WishList/PublicWishLists.asp

sometimes people will reply their pro's and con's about someone's setup.