I would love to build one, but, I just KNOW I'd mess it up.

I found a site with decent deals too, http://www.ecollegepc.com/ looks pretty solid, and everything is customizable for the most part.  I particularly like the fact that you can upgrade your PSU.

Do not buy one from some random ass manufacturer, that would be mistake #1.  At least buy it from a reputable company.

If you want to go customizable start will a solid vendor like Vigor gaming:  http://www.vigorgaming.com/product/config_hornetne.html

www.dell.com - if you are lazy or if you do not know how to put one together.

Looking for an all purpose moniter for when i go to Uni in a month and a half. Currently have a samsung 2232bw which im very happy with, but would like to view tv/ps3 from my room so need hdmi socket and a tuner which might as well be a 2nd moniter as well. I've seen a nice looking samsung with tv tuner inside (T240HD) but i just found a different model (P2370HD) and now im confused by there stupid labelling and can't tell the difference.
another option is a cheaper moniter with a tv card, i have no experiance with these and google doesn't really bring any good comparisons in terms of reviews. recording is pretty cool, but not sure i'd use it.

so looking for advice on a moniter(22"+)/tv tuner for around £300. dunno how that converts to dollars because stuff is more expensive here but most it looks like i could afford majority of the stardard moniters, not the expensive dells or whatever.

Well that's the thing, they are a reputable company.  I had a friend buy a computer from there a year back, they also have an ebay store with only positive feedback, 1000's.  I checked out vigor but it looks like they overcharge like crazy.

Ey Slap, or any other computer-knowing-guy, I need a hand. You see, I
have a pretty good setup; HD4870 512MB, E8500, 4GB Ram, Vista 64-bit.
But even with those specs, I have problems running games like Mass
Effect. I should be able to run it 1680x1050 on full effects with
60fps, right? But no. I'm frequently dropping to as low as 40FPS in
fights and sometimes even walking it drops to 50 fps. This isn't
gamebreakingly bad, but that jitter I get because of that is annoying.
Plus I payed 900 motha******* euros for this just a year ago so I'm
expecting games to run smooth as butter. So, any idea what could be
wrong? Temperatures? I haven't formatted in like a year, could that
cause problems? If you could help, that'd be great, thanks.

Could be cpu bottleneck, unless you are running crazy AA settings

I'm running a Nvigida GTS 250, 4gb of ram, and a 2.53 ghz core 2 duo processor.

My TF2 runs like complete crap. In a 32 man game, I get 40 fps without any action, and 18 or less when I'm actually fighting anyone.

Any help?

The source engine isn't all that optimized but it should be doing more than that.  Do you have the latest drivers?  Removed all your old ones with a driver cleaner?  Turn on the multicore option in the game's settings as well.

What are you graphics settings at in game?  Do you have vsync on?  Turn it off.

latest drivers, old ones are clean, multicore is on.

I have AA off, have everything at medium(I've been trying to avoid going to low since dropping my settings from high to medium didn't change my fps at all) about, vsync is off.

I'm told that fragmentation is hell on a steam game, so I'm defragging now...