Anti-virus/protection question.

What does everyone think is the best anti-virus for a gaming computer. I would prefer free, but would be willing to pay if the product is right. I've used AVG and Avast and thought both were fine, I just wanna do it right and not have it suck up a lot of my computer at random times like I've seen some do. Also if anyone has any security tips let me know.

I would use Microsoft Security Essentials. AVG is bloated and the scan times of Avast are slow. If you browse "interesting" web sites scan with Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware weekly too. For your browser use the latest beta of Google Chrome and enable Click to Play to block most flash ads. Then download Privoxy and set your LAN connection to use Privoxy as a proxy. This will filter out the vast majority of those other ads. There is only a slight slowdown as Privoxy filters out the crap. Then make sure your routers hardware firewall is enabled and adjust any security settings for you connection if necessary. Finally make sure all your applications and Windows are fully patched. You should also switch to different applications that are not as vulnerable, like PDF Xchange Viewer for PDF's instead of Adobe's junk.