Processor recommendation

[Katanas Blade]

To hell with the fans go LIQUID!!!

Way Cooler than normal fans....No noise....and No dust in your Rig...You can't go wrong

Maintenance on water setups can be a royal PITA. Have to be super extra careful when moving the rig, if the cables are exposed to the outside to the heat-sink area mounted on the rear of the case, it's easy to get them tweaked and cause a leak. Don't get me wrong, water cooling is super sweet, but it all depends on how it's setup.

[[AK]Squidly]

For 90% of gamers, the whole overclocking scene is overkill and leads to more problems than it is worth.

If you don't have the time/interest to devote to slavishly studying all of the technical particulars, don't bother going down that road.

[[AK]The Beast]

Just bought my new components from a combination of TigerDirect and NewEgg. About $350 altogether, before rebates. Went with AMD instead of Intel because 200 mhz faster core was $40 cheaper that way.
Specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ Processor - 2.80GHz (dual core)
2 GB DDR2 800 Mhz (2x1 GB dual channel)
GIGABYTE AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard (open box for about $100 off)
XFX GeForce 8800GT XXX 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card (just one for now but the potential is there to add another down the road when it's cheaper).

I saved a little money by deciding to use my current case rather than buy a new case as part of a barebones kit.

Compare to my current rig:
Athlon XP 2800+ 2.1 Ghz
1.5 GB DDR PC3200 RAM
GeForce 6600 GT AGP

Someone's getting ready to kick some AoC arse!!

[[AK]The Beast]

Got home, got my last components and put the whole thing together--and whammo, power goes out right before I get it plugged in. (Of course I was on a good surge protector, so I would have been fine even had it been plugged in.) Turns out a transformer behind my house blew, so I've been without power for the past 7+ hours. But I'm still getting all the drivers installed so I can play AoC tomorrow!! Debating whether to upgrade this rig to Vista to take advantage of DX10 and clean out some of the obsolete drivers (I opted not to format just yet).