Buying my first computer in ever, need help!

[RetSpline]

Hi all! For about the past 3 years now I've constantly been saying, "Definitely getting a new computer in a couple months, any day now really. For sure this time." I'm sure all my close friends are tired of hearing about it by now. However, thanks to my stunningly accurate mental accounting practices it turns out that I actually have a bit more money than I thought I did so I finally decided to bite the bullet and get a new computer.

For reference, this is what I've been using since forever (note that the review was written over 6 years ago) except that I've only got a 40GB hard drive and I've bumped it up to a whole two gigabytes of RAM. And the screen doesn't work, the battery lasts about 4 seconds if I'm lucky, one of the USB ports and the Ethernet port have never worked, a couple of the keyboard keys and the panel covering the CPU have been missing for quite a long time. Basically, there's literally nowhere but up to go from here.

I have absolutely no idea what exactly I'm looking for, and am actually soliciting help from a lot of places. If anyone could even just point me in the right direction and maybe give some hardware suggestions, I would be very grateful.

What I'm looking for:
Budget: $800 at the very maximum
Desktop or Laptop: Desktop
Mac vs. PC: PC
What the computer will be used for: Primarily schoolwork, internet use, and a lot of gaming. By "gaming", however, I'm not talking about playing all of this year's releases at maximum settings. At the very least I've got a 5-year backlog of games I still haven't been able to play that I'd need to work through first. Basically as long as I can get any strategy/RPG game in the near future to at least run, I will be happy.

I already own a monitor and all the requisite accessories for a new computer, I just need the physical tower. I'm not actually sure as to my preference between buying individual parts versus buying a pre-built machine. I am confident of my abilities to assemble the computer properly and it is my understanding that this method produces better results at a lower price, but a pre-built machine is miles ahead in terms of convenience. I could go either way, is what I'm saying, unless one option is just obviously superior to the other.

Thanks again in advance!

[Meem1029]

I don't know specific models, but I can tell you that you can definitely get a solid computer for what you want it to do for significantly less than that. I think that you can actually get pretty decent prices looking just at specs in that range from prebuilt, but by building yourself you gain the knowledge that everything was done right and you can fix things much easier (and without having to choose between void warranty and pay tons for repair).

[PhoenixEnigma]

The fact that you mention gaming, at all, suggests to me that building it yourself is a good idea - you'll pay through the nose for any sort of video card in a turnkey system, and integrated graphics aren't really up to the point where I'd want to recommend them quite yet. In terms of hardware, that's the use case to keep in mind - word processing and internet are substantially less intensive. That said, you should easily be able to get a system that does what you want for under what you want to spend - enough so that you have a few options as to how to do it.

Also, I have too much time on my hands tonight.

One option that's a little closer to the top of your pricerange, and possibly more computer than you need right now, but would last a while and have room to grow:

Spoiler:

ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3 motherboard ($105). Reasonable price, decent brand, all the options you might want. Should support Ivy Bridge, too, if you want to keep your CPU options open down the road.
Core i3-2120 CPU ($120). Fairly cheap, runs cool, and still crazy fast for anything not overly multi-threaded. Oddly, cheaper than the i3-2100 at the moment
2x4GB Patriot DDR3-1600 ($37) It's RAM. It's cheap. 8GB is cheap enough there's no reason not to go for it, and 16GB is expensive enough to avoid unless you'll need it.
Radeon HD 6870 video card($165). Possibly more video card than you really need, but it should last you a good long while. Will also give you whatever outputs you'll need, and comes with a free copy of Dirt 3
WD 500GB Caviar Blue hard drive ($90). Prices on hard drives are still painfully high, but it's big enough, cheap enough, and decent enough.
Antec 500W EarthWatts PSU ($66). Very solid and well regarded power supplies, fairly quiet, and more then enough to power the system.
CoolerMaster Elite 430 case ($50). Honestly, cases are pretty subjective. This one is pretty middle-of-the-road in most regards, but there's lots of options.
DVD Burner ($18). It's cheap, it's a DVD drive. Exciting!
Windows 7 HP64 ($100). Unless you can get a cheaper copy somewhere, like an academic copy, you're likely going to need to fork over a hundred bucks to microsoft. Sorry.

Total: $751, less if you factor in MIRs

Trading some performance for style and a little cash:

Spoiler:

ASRock A75M-ITX motherboard ($90). It's tiny, and it's quite decent. Make sure the video outputs work for you, though.
AMD A8-3870K APU ($140). Decent enough CPU and decent enough video card rolled into one.
2x4GB DDR3-1866 ($70). Llano APUs benefit from faster RAM, so it's worth it to spend up a bit. Again, 8GB is probably the sweet spot.
Momentux XT 500GB hard drive ($150). Don't really have room for a SSD+HDD setup here, but this is as close as you'll get to it in a single drive. Snappier than the Caviar Blue listed above.
Antex HCG M 400W PSU ($70). Don't need as much power, but the modular cables are very nice to have in a smaller case.
Lian Li PC-Q07 Case ($70). This is where the style bit comes in, really. Good quality, small footprint, and classy.
DVD Burner ($18). It's the same cheap DVD drive. Shocking.
Windows 7 HP64 ($100) Moar windows!

Total: $708

Cheap and cheerful! Much less overkill, but still more than capable of what you're asking:

Spoiler:

ASRock H61M/U3S3 motherboard ($70). Cheap, and it gets you USB 3 and SATA 6Gb/s.
Pentium G860 CPU ($100). Not as fast as the i3, but it will still handle even new games well enough at reasonable settings, and make short work of backlogged games.
2x4GB Crucial DDR3-1333 RAM ($35). It's cheap, it's low voltage (a plus) and there's little to no difference between 1333MHz and 1600MHz. Unless every penny counts, I'd go for the faster stuff anyways, though.
Radeon HD6750 video card ($90). Might still be overkill, strictly speaking, but without knowing the exact games and resolution you have in mind, better to err on the side of too much power.
Hitachi Deskstar 500GB hard drive ($80). I've heard good things about this drive, and it's 'cheap', at least as far as hard drive pricing post-flood goes.
Antec 300 case + 430W PSU ($70). A decent but kind of basic case. Antec tends to include half-decent, if not great, power supplies
DVD Burner ($18). I'm out of things to say about this drive.
Windows 7 HP64 ($100) Does not include sills, curtains, or blinds.

Total: $563

FWIW, the cheapest Dell I can find with a video card, period, is the Alienware X51, which falls somewhere between the first and third in performance, and goes for $700

[RetSpline]

Thank you very much for your excellent suggestions! I am all kinds of indecisive about this sort of purchase so I have no idea what I'm going to go for yet. I will probably go with something more expensive but commensurately more powerful. The longer I can go without needing to get a new computer again, the better.