Building a new PC from scratch

That's a mouthful! I've only built one workstation PC from scratch, but never a gaming PC. I have done myriads of upgrades though.

Due to recent events in my personal life, I haven't had hardly any time to use the computer beyond checking my email and seeing what the top 10 on digg is. That also means I'm completely out of the loop on whats up and coming, and also what the good hardware is now-a-days. I have, however, hit up tomshardware to see what the latest is, so I'm getting back into it a bit.

It doesn't need to be built right this second by any means, I'm even fine with waiting a few weeks if that means getting all the specs right. Heck, I'm still on the fence as to whether I want XP or Vista! Microsoft has already invested too much into Vista to back down, but I've never used it, and I'm very efficient in navigating XP, so I'm not sure what to do.

As for the hardware, that's what I truly need help with. I haven't set in my mind what parts I want for sure, so I'm pretty open. Money isn't really an issue, I just want to get something that will keep going for a few years, and still be able to compete. Currently I'm using an old eMachines rig that I've upgraded so many times that it's not even an eMachines anymore! But the core components, a 1.8GHz CPU and AGP graphics card, are really starting to feel like they've aged.

I know for sure I do want to go with Nvidia for my video card(s), and I also want to stick with Intel for my CPU. I'm filtering through all of the MBs out there, and it doesn't really seem like there's a high-end model that most people can agree on. Asus seems to make some good boards, but no matter which ones I look at, people inevitably leave horrible feedback based on what happened to them using that board.

Any input and thought on this would be immensely appreciated!