Ever raidmax PSU I've ever had failed, slowly; first by not giving enough power for all internals, and then failing completely. I second Lasereth on that.
However,
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Dual core is best for gaming in my opinion unless you plan on overclocking (which is not a good idea for someone building their first PC). Quadcores typically have lower clock speeds but 4 cores, and many games only use 2 cores or even 1, so dual cores with their higher clock speeds are better bang for your buck. AMD and Intel both have great CPUs for the price. It depends on how much you want to spend. AMD can't compete with the high-end Intel CPUs but at the low to medium range they do fine. If you want upgradeability I would go with LGA 775.
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This, I have to disagree with. I just build a budget PC (around $600) with the Kentsfield Q6600 (low-end) quad-core and noticed substantial difference in the games I play over dual core. I've seen improvements in Cysis and EverQuest2, for sure. In fairness, EQ2 has a check box for 'use multicore support' which means they've clearly optimized for it, but I do think that considering the similarity between the higher end dual core and the low-to-mid quad-cores, I'd pick a quad core again any day.
Also, I haven't seen any reason to go with the "FATALITY" branded anything - I think you're paying more for marketing than performance. There are plenty of good 4GB bundles out there, 1066, with good speed - for much cheaper.
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As an example, here's the system I built:
Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
ASRock P43Twins1600 LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
EVGA 512-P3-N879-AR GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI 700W ATX12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply - Retail
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor Model BX80562Q6600 - Retail
Crucial Ballistix 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT25664AA80A - Retail
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Sony NEC Optiarc 20X DVDR Burner Black SATA Model AD-7200S-0B - OEM
I think it was $660 shipped at the time, after mail-in rebates.