PC Upgrade recommendations

[jammerb]

I'm in the process of planning to upgrade my comp using one of the two following systems:

Processor Intel Pentium 4 630
CPU Socket Type LGA 775
Core Prescot
Mother board ASUS P5B
Memory Kingston 512MB DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Video Card EVGA 256-P2-N615-TX GeForce 7600GT
PSU HIPER HPU-4K530-MS
Heat Sink Thermalright MST-9775
Case COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-WW

Or

Processor AMD AM2 Orleans Athlon 64 3500+
Operating Frequency: 2.2GHz
Mother Board ASUS M2N
North Bridge NVIDIA nForce 430 MC
Memory Kingston 1GB DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Video Card EVGA 256-P2-N615-TX GeForce 7600GT
PSU HIPER HPU-4K530-MS
Heat Sink Thermalright SI-97A w/Panaflo 92mm Case Fan
Case COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-WW

My budget is in the $500 range and I plan on keeping the existing drives, I'm a little over with each of these but still within range.

Does anyone see any glaring incompatibilities in either of these set-ups? Are there any reasons to choose one over the other (personal preferences aside)? Would I benefit greatly by choosing other components?


Thanks in Advance

Jim

[glc]

Let's look at Intel, but make some improvements and stay in budget.

Case: Fine.
PSU: Nope. XClio 450BL. 40 bucks cheaper and plenty good.
Motherboard: Fine.
CPU: Nope. Pentium-D 915 or 925.
Ram: Nope. 1 gig Corsair Value Select dual channel kit DDR2-667.
Video card: Fine.
Heatsink: Not necessary with retail boxed processor.

If you can toss another 75 bucks or so at it, you can get a Core 2 Duo E6300.

[jammerb]

Thanks for the quick response, glc. I knew I could count on you guys. I had reservations about the PSU to begin with. Will the 450w unit be sufficient given that I will also have a NIC card, Fire-wire and possibly a sound card. Should I go with a 500w unit instead. Prescott CPU looks real good, not sure how I missed that one. I've heard horror stories about Intel factory heat sinks, have they gotten any better?

[glc]

450 watts is plenty. The factory heatsinks are fine for stock speeds and mild overclocking. The 9xx series dual cores are Presler, 65nm, they run a lot cooler than Prescotts.

[jammerb]

Did some poking around Newegg (I love that place) and found I can upgrade to your recommendations and still stay at the upper range of my budget. Looking good!!!!!

[glc]

If you really want to squeeze it - and get a Core 2 Duo - you can get a P5L-MX board - it's 945G but it IS C2D compatible.