Kid? Get out of your mother's basement would you. I work in the PC industry. My own rig runs Sabayon but has run Gentoo and Arch perfectly well over the years as well. I've bought a number of commercial games for Linux and run a few under WINE. UT2003, 2004, ETQW, X-Plane, Descent 3, to name a few and plenty of free games to boot. I don't run Compiz or any other silly eye candy outside of E17. I like my computer FAST.
My rig is anything but run of the mill. It certainly isn't cream of the crop but it isn't a slouch either. FWIW: Intel DX58SO motherboard, Core i7 940, 6GB DDR3, Nvidia GTS250, 80GB Intel SSD, 146GB 10K Raptor, assorted other drives, DVDRW. And sound? Yeah, most Audigy cards work just fine. Pair with the Klipsch speakers on my desk they sound even better. Oh, and no working installation of Windows outside of Virtualbox.