If you really must have a prebuilt, then do a price comparison with CyberPowerPC:
http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/CyberPower_P67_Configurator/

iGuess has pretty much nailed on what you should get for a rig if it must be soon. AMD's Bulldozer will come out some time in Q2, but we still have no benches or anything official stating its performance. Sandybridge is pretty much untouched right now for performance/value.

I don't have to have a prebuilt. I'm tech savvy enough to actually know how to build it. What I don't know how to do is pick out parts that will work.

You just have to research it. even things like RAM compatibility with the MOBO. look at technical specs and such.
look at user reviews to see what works best and problems that might arise.
do you plan to overclock? I can, but I havn't because there is no need at the moment. but if you did, you want to make sure temps are in check, so research that.
find out which GPUs run cool.
compare power supplies, not just between brands, but within the various brand models also.
....etc.

Take a look at iGuess's newegg list:
http://i51.tinypic.com/xauxrk.png

That's pretty decent. You don't need the video card. Not sure if you need the operating system.

Although I would personally get the G Skill Ripjaws:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231277&cm_re=4GB_ripjaws_1600-_-20-231-277-_-Product

...there's 8GB if you really need that much (this is overkill to me):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314&cm_re=8gb_ripjaws_1600-_-20-231-314-_-Product

And the PSU is very nice (I have one), but this will still do very well:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005&cm_re=corsair_650w-_-17-139-005-_-Product

You should be able to get an idea of what will be needed. The only question here is motherboard choice. I have the Core i5 2500K and it's an amazing CPU running on an Asus P8P67 (standard) motherboard. Gigabyte also makes decent boards (P67-UD4 for example), but right now none of them support UEFI, which is a new bios interface that makes it real simple to make changes and navigate through. Not a big loss really, but it's a nice feature IMO...the Gigabyte boards supposedly will get a BIOS update later on with their own version of UEFI.

"Better RAM" isn't really accurate, since that implies that you will see some tangible performance increase from the RAM. Unless you are editing images that are 15,000x15,000 pixels, or rendering video, anything more than 4GB is just wasted money.

As for OEM vs full Windows, the only real difference is that the OEM version is tied to whatever computer you install it on first. You can upgrade without causing problems, unless you change your motherboard, in which case it will detect that it is a "new computer", though often you can choose to activate by phone and explain that it was an upgrade, and even with a motherboard upgrade, the support person who you got might let you activate.

As for getting a 3TB HDD, my advice would be don't. 2TB HDDs are already unreliable enough, adding another TB, more platters, more drive heads, all in the same size space is just asking for drive failure. If you have money to spend, I would start out with a good 1TB HDD and a 128GB SSD. The performance gains of an SSD are extremely noticeable, and 1TB HDDs give good speed without the failure problems of higher capacity drives. Storage is easily expandable, so unless you need 3TB right now, there's no need to buy more. The CM 690 II has 6 drive bays, 7 if you count the hot-swap bay on the top, so you really don't need high capacity in a single drive.

Alright, I really "need" a new PC here. RAM doesn't really matter that much, but more is better, eh?

Either way I would need Windows 7 as still use XP.

Hard drives are optional, but it's never bad to have more storage.

Also, can anybody recommend a good gaming mouse? I don't need one now, but I will in the future.

I don't want SSD, and I don't want multiple drives just yet, so 3TB is enough storage on a single drive.

1TB probably won't be enough. My current HD is 300 gigs and is almost full (with about 15-20% free space). World Of Warcraft alone takes up almost 30 gigs, Morrowind over 6 gigs, Medieval 2 Total War over 6 gigs, and many other games are similar. Future games will take up more and more space, the new MMO Rift I want to play will use up a ton of space, and eventually I'll run into the same problem with 1TB. I need that high capacity. Keeping certain games uninstalled when I'm not playing them is not an option, since I often modify single player games.

For video editing, I never had the capability or software. There's no way this computer could do it. But I do want to learn how to edit video, how to 3D model etc., maybe even go back to school for a computer-related field. A powerful computer with a lot of ram will be beneficial. 16 gigs is not necessarily overkill, not if I look at it in a future-proofing kind of way where I don't have to upgrade every two years.

EDIT: Gaming mouse recommendation, hmm. You mean one with a ton of buttons? I never bothered with one but I've heard people sing their praises in MMOs because extra buttons that are easy to access are always useful. I'll have to look into them.

You can always buy another HD. I have mostly filled up my 500Gig HD, but I have another 250Gig that has plenty of room.

I'd also advise keeping the hard drives to 1TB at maximum. Hard drives are, in my limited experience, the most likely component of the computer to fail (besides the fan). The bigger the drive, the bigger the loss suffered when this does occur. A second hard drive, besides being a hedge against data loss, also can serve to boost the performance of the computer... By running games from a different drive from the OS, both drives are doing less work to fetch data. Heck, I'd almost advise 500GB if the price point for 1TB wasn't so darn good.

I'm not saying that 3TB isn't a good amount of storage to have, just that 3TB drives are unreliable and prone to failure. And yes, 16GB of RAM is overkill unless you are running a serious professional rendering computer or a large server. Really. Future-proofing is just another way of saying "wasting your money". 4GB costs a measly $50. Even 8GB is cheap. By the time you need more than 8GB of RAM, 16GB will very likely be cheaper, you'll probably be running a mobo that is no longer dual-channel, and what type of RAM is standard will probably be different. I'm also guessing that it's a 4-stick kit, with each stick being 4GB, rather than 2x8GB, which is much less stable than running it in dual channel mode.

4 gig seems a bit low to me. Although I can't imagine what I could ever use more then 4 for.

All I want to do is play NV on max settings? Is it that hard? *Sniff* :cold:

Nope, it's pretty easy. Depending on what framerate you consider "running" something. For me, if it isn't at 60FPS with Vsync on, then I'd turn the graphics down, and it wont be at "max" settings anymore. Most people are fine with 30. If you just get 4GB of RAM, and an i5 2500k, you probably will be very happy. You should definitely also think about getting a second 460, since there are a handful of games that would be pretty much unplayable on max on a single 460, but none that would be with 2. Skyrim and other upcoming titles like BF3 would definitely see benefit from SLI.

I currently use a 9400. Any card will be an improvement. I usually can't run New Vegas at any more then 15 FPS. Turning down my resolution may help but I shall use my TV to the fullest, dammit!

I've actually never done this. I can use my C: drive purely to boot up, and use the D: drive to install all games? If that's the case with no problems, I'd rather buy two 1TB drives. I had a drive fail on me. Not fun.

I've heard of problems with some games being installed in locations other than the default C: location. If you use two drives in this way, you can't RAID them or anything right? They have to be separate? I don't know the details on all this so I'm asking.

There shouldn't be any problem with the vast majority of games. It will still put save files and other things that would normally go in your documents folder on your system drive (unless you change the default location of these folders to a different drive, which isn't something you'd want to do in this case). A game on the system drive, or a game on another hard drive, it makes no difference. You could run them in RAID, but I wouldn't recommend it. You get more speed, but then you have MORE ways to lose your data. If your motherboard or other RAID controller breaks, you very likely will lose data. Technically, you should be able to use a motherboard/raid controller of the same type with the old RAID array and have no problems, but in practice this fails to work a lot of the time. Not really sure why you have decided you don't want an SSD, but using one works the same way. System files, some programs like browsers, other small, commonly used programs, and some games on the SSD, install everything else on your other HDDs. If you want to put a game on the SSD, or take it off the SSD to replace it with another one, all you'd have to do is drag and drop it from one place to another. This would potentially break some shortcuts, but the game would run just fine.

Well I don't know much about computers, but I like to have my C drive small say 150 gigs, and then use the D drive as big as you want. This way if you have to reformat it, or do a factory refit, all the stuff you have on the C drive will not be lost or you will not have to copy and past to other hard drives or storage devices.

Just an idea, not sure how good it is, but it works for me.

Better even is having a say 128/160GBs SSD as your C drive and then as you said having a secondary (and more) as 1TB HDDs.

I'm planning on doing this when I build my computer...Q4 2011 or so...and it ends up being a cheap and very efficient solution

I originally didn't want SSD because of limited rewrite. It doesn't seem a bad choice for an OS-only drive though depending on what they cost.

TRIM pretty much negates that problem to the point that by the time you'd need to replace it because of limited writes, it would be completely outdated, and replacing it with one just like it would probably cost $30. Yes, I just pulled that number out of nowhere, but you're looking at 5+ years.

All of this is sounding rather good to me. What would the power requirements of, say, an SDD and one or two 1TB HDDs be?

Not that much I think...it's usually the GPU that svcks power BTW although more expensive an 80Plus PSU (Gold if possible) should be mandatory and from brands like Corsair or Enermax. People usually overlook the PSU and motherboard and although they won't really affect your gaming performance they define your rig's stability so consider it an investement.

But what would you say the wattage would need to be plus all other components?

Also, if anybody can recommend me a build I will gladly take it under advisemant. I guess that it should have support for to Graphics Processors, but it's not a must.

See:
http://i51.tinypic.com/xauxrk.png

Take out the GPU, since you have a 460. 650w is enough for a 2500k and SLI.

That depends on the rest of the build and since you still do not know it I can't know...but 650W is probably enough, maybe less. Might I suggest the AX 750W I know it's a bit overkill but it has the 80 Plus Gold certifaication, it's from Corsair and you might want to get go SLI with the GTX 460 (highly recommend) in which case you may want/need this kind of power. It's about 150-160 euros, not sure in usd though.

I don't like OEMs. I would prefer to be able to install an OS that I bought on any PC I so wish.

What are the prices of full it-comes-with-it's-own-nifty-CDs versions?


Umm... USD... How do you convert to celsius again???