Building a machine

[Swarmalicious]

Hiya Lurkers,

Hope you've all been well.
After having not met the minimum requirements (and I mean REALLY not met) for the WoW beta sign-ups, I figure it's about time to invest in a new CPU. It is tax return time, after all.

I have picked up decent chunk of knowledge about what goes where and which does what when it comes to computers - family members call me when they get a cable modem or need to install some more ram, or whatever. I feel confident that I could build my own machine, although I've never done so before - I want to if for no other reason than to avoid getting ripped off by gateway or dell. :) However, aside from knowing how to type "pricewatch.com" into the address bar, I have no idea what I'm doing or where to start. Particularly when it comes to installing an OS & cd drive onto a brand new hard drive... how does that work exactly?

Any tips from you guys out there who're savvy in the area? Any suggestions for brand names & power concerning vid cards, processors, etc? (Essentially and eventually, I want something that can handle poster-sized images in photoshop without a lot of slow down, and be able to play WoW like a freak when it comes out :) ).

Any pearl of wisdom you can bestow will be treated, as usual, like holy scripture.

Thanks,

Swarm