Im slowly putting together a smorgish board of computers onto this new computer desk I just bought. I have one computer I am going to use strictly for school and work, then I plan on having another one just for gaming, and i still got my laptop hooked up as well.

I would like to buy one that is for gaming, but I know the key success to a good gaming machine is the memory, graphic card and processor. I know about the main differences between a Pentium and Celeron, but how does it affect productivity in the world of gaming? Would a Celeron rated at or over 2.5ghz with 500mb of ram be suffucient to run all the new games smoothly, or would I need a more powerfull kick? I really wouldnt be doing online gaming that much if that helps out..

go with AMD for gaming, theyre better processors

No Celerons for intense gaming!! They are a "pared down" Pentium. Your gaming computer (assuming you plan on playing the latest 3d stuff) is the computer you want to drop the big bucks on.

Agreed, you wouldn't want a Celeron.

Soo then, what is your take on AMD'* then? I have no idea how they are classified or ranked. Like P3 or P4 etc...

Sorry dude, gotta correct this one..... it'* "smorgasbord." Lol.

As far as AMD processors go, I helped a buddy buy components for his new system. He got an AMD 64bit processor that was something like 2.5ghz, and it works really well.

You probably know this already, but a bigger part of your 3D capabilities are your graphics card and RAM. Having a state-of-the-art graphics chipset with at least 1GB of RAM will have you playing Battlefield 2 (or whatever your game of choice may be) like a champ in no time. I would recommend a beefy Pentium 4 or a 64bit AMD for a processor, and I would think that anything over 2.5ghz will do just fine.

agreed, AMD the way to go,

AMD 3000+ and up rock! my friend got this with 1 gig ddr and just a FX5700le 128 mo

and run GTR (a racing game with lot of detail) at over 110FPS (frame per second) wich is pretty fast.

i have another friend with similar setup
P4 3 ghz 1 gig DDR 128mo ATI 9600 se and got between 70-80 FPS

the ATI 9600 is faster than the FX5700le from Nvidia. so the AMD 64 bit really kick!

put that setup with a ASUS Nvidia 6600GT PCI express video card and you will play anything at full graphic option for a long time.

Gaming I'd go with socket 939 AMD Athlon 64, at least a 3200. 6600GT for bang for your buck, higher for better performance. Here'* a good deal on a 600GT PCI-X http://slickdeals.net/#p6471

Here'* a link where you can compare various CPUs from AMD and Intel

http://www23.tomshardware.com/index.html

Seems like everyone likes the AMD'*...so they dont conflict at all with any type of window programs or aftermarket hardware?