There was a thread a while ago about instrumental music for studying, with a lot of good suggestions:

http://teamfortress.tv/thread/20836/instrumental-classical-music/

Welcome to competitive TF2!

A good way to start would be to become familiar with the different formats/classes as well as learn general stuff such as rollouts. That's exactly why I made the thread that ulmyxx already linked in #10, to give you as much information about competitive as possible. If you have an idea of what competitive is and what you should be doing, join a lobby on tf2center.com

At first I'd recommend you just try things out, and experience how different formats/classes are played. In competitive TF2, there are essentially 2 common formats, 6v6 and Highlander. 6v6 is quite a structured format feauturing 1 Medic, 1 Demoman, 2 Soldiers and 2 Scouts on each team, while a team in highlander consists of 9 players, one for each class. If you already have a few classes you like to play in pubs, try them out in a competitive settings and see what suites you best.

Watching casts of competitive matches, for example on TFTV is also a great way to take a look at competitive.

Currently thinking about getting an FX-6350, would that be enough to get me passable fps?

Update: apparently a convar has been added to revert the health positions back to the old style, that might fix it:

tf_hud_target_id_disable_floating_health

http://teamfortress.tv/thread/13542/broeselhud-blue/?page=8#234

These changes have been made by Valve and thus can't be reverted to the old version as of right now. Hudmakers can only fix their huds to adjust for the changes. Don't have a computer on me that can run tf2 right now, so the earliest I can get to working on a fix for cmyk/flv/5md would be January, sorry.

Check out the Guide section on huds.tf, you should be able to find a solution to your problem there: http://huds.tf/guides/. You can also try to google for "tf2 hud font change tutorial" or whatever, there are a few good one's out there, include a really detailed one by LaMaison I believe.

tr_arena_rc1 is a map that might give you a similar experience:
http://teamfortress.tv/thread/17952/tr-arena-rc1

When you say "instrumental" do you mean any kind of music without lyrics or specifically ambient music that doesn't have much of a beat/rhythm whatsoever?

btw, if you have to write something and don't want to be distracted, download OmmWriter. Complete removes all distractions, plays some meditation music and lets you concentrate fully on your writing.

I put together a wide selection, all of these don't have lyrics and have a slow/relaxing rhythm, although they are from different genres. (can't post youtube links right now though due to internet censorship here). Sorry for the long post:

Classical/Neoclassical
Maxence Cyrin - The Fantasist
Tim Hecker - Dropped Pianos
Nils Frahm - The Bells
Nils Frahm - Felt
Nils Frahm - Spaces
Eric Satie - Gymnopedie
A Winged Victory for the Sullen - selftitled
Goldmund - The Malady of Elegance
Henryk Gorecki - Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) (maybe)

Ambient (nearly no rhythm)
Brian Eno - Ambient 1: Music for Airports
Brian Eno - Ambient 2: Plateaux of Mirror
Brian Eno - Ambient 3: Day of Radiance
Brian Eno - Ambient 4: On Land
Robert Rich - Somnium (maybe, originally a concept album to be played while sleeping, 7 hours long)
Michael Oster - Sound of a Dying Hurricane (field recording of a hurricane)
Chris Watson - Stepping into the Dark (Field recordings of a river at different times of the day)
Lawrence English - Kiri No Oto (ambient drone, not everyones taste)

Post-Rock
Orange Crush - Autumn Reflections
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F# A#
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift your skinny fists like antennas to heaven
Library Tapes - A Summer beneath the trees

Hip-Hop
Nujabes - Departure (maybe)
Nujabes - Metaphorical Music
Nujabes - Modal Soul
Nujabes - Spiritual State
Task the Samara - Flood (maybe)
Shigeto - Lineage
Blazo - Colours of Jazz (Jazz-Hop)
Athmosphere - Seven Travels Instrumentals (Maybe)
Clams Casino - Instrumentals
Edamame - Greenhouse (Instrumental Hip-Hop based on nature samples)
Kenishiro Nishihara - First Impressions
Kondor - Peace Of Soul

General Instrumental (different genres)
Aidan Clare - Home
The Album Leaf - In a Safe Place
Asa & Stumbleine - Your Secret
Austin Wintory - Journey
Ben Jordan - Pale Blue Dot
Bonobo - Black Sands
Bonobo - The North Borders
Burial - Kindred EP / Untrue / selftitled (Maybe)
Carbon Based Lifeforms - Interloper / TwentyThree (Maybe, don't really like them)
The Caretaker - An empty bliss beyond this world
Celer - Engaged Touches
David Lange - Return of the Comet
Dolphins into the Future - On Sea-Faring Isolation
Francis Harris - Leland (maybe)
From the Mouth of the Sun - Woven Tide
Hakobune - The Cowboy across the River
Helios - Unomia
Indignu - Odyssea (maybe)
Mark Lyrell - Tetrachromacy EP
Olafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm - Stare
One Thousand Lucky Cranes - selftitled
Portico Quartet - Isla
Portico Quartet - Knee-deep in the North Sea
Portico Quartet - selftitled
Pregnant Head - Afterlove (maybe)
Pregnant Head - Disintegration (maybe)
Robert Farrugia - They Glistened Sharply Through Morning Dew
Naono - Sleepy Pebbles
SBTRKT - selftitled
Sigmund Freund - Experiri
Sigmund Freund - Kallang Bahru
Soma - kata2 (maybe)
Takitani - Songs 1
Western Jupiter - Arimillaria EP
Woob - Woob² 4495 (maybe)

tf_hud_show_servertimelimit 1 in console/autoexec

Nobody Knows/ Dare mo shiranai is quite a good movie in my opinion, although it's certainly a bit different and may not be for everyone. It's a japanese movie and the music is really well done

Adding onto that, how does it look like for weapons that dont have a clip, like the minigun or the flamethrower?

185 cm, so.. about 6'1"?

If you're looking to get into 6v6, this list of guides might help you learn the basics:

http://teamfortress.tv/thread/18435/collection-of-resources-tips-for-6v6

Have been experiencing the same thing, quite annoying since the game calculates the door as being open but you can't see through it very well

nvm there's a thread with a solution already. sorry