Rebuild or Upgrade?

[eroc]

Hey Guys/Gals

I built my current system about a year and a half ago give or take.

P4 2.8C
Asus P4P800 SE
Powercolor Radeon 9600 128MB (SE?)
1 Gig of Mushkin PC3200 DDR400
WD 80g
Lite-On CDRW

That was my first build and was lucky not to have experienced any technical difficulties. Currently I play World of Warcraft and Battlefield 2 on occasion. I know very little about AMD but have been reading as much as possible about it and all this new duel core stuff. Also I left off when the ATI 9800Pro was a great card. I'd like to build an AMD system with the new duel core chip and try an Nvidia graphics card. I don't plan on doing the SLi duel video card so I won't need an SLi board. As of now my system handles both games fairly well on Medium+ settings. I would just love to build something new and possibly donate my old system to my parents.

I've been reading about the new Intel Conroe core? Is this something to look forward to or will AMD have it beat 3 months later? Also I don't plan on overclocking as its not a hobby of mine. I'm not looking for the top dollar hardware but I don't want to compromise quality either. And lastly would I really notice a performance increase by rebuilding to an AMD dual core, a PCI-E nvidia card, and maybe adding a gig of ram to bump it up to 2gigs?

Sorry for the long post and thanks in advance for your recommendations on a setup that doesn't have conflicts.

[MakeYourslf2012]

However much you want to spend on this will determine if your are going to upgrade or start a new build. What budget were you thinking of using?

Right now, the "AMD dual-core and PCI-E video card" seems like a furture proof build - leaving tons of room for upgrading.

Or if its better gameplay your are looking for, just a video card upgrade will improve your performance dramatically.

[blue60007]

Yeah, you might just consider an older AGP video card upgrade. You've got a decent system except for the graphics. What PSU do you have?

The top of the line in terms of AGP cards is the 7800GS, there's even some cheaper ones that will squeeze some more life out of the computer so you can save up for a whole new build. Intel's Conroe sounds *very* promising, and I'm sure AMD will be right behind with something new to counter it.

[eroc]

I have the Aspire Turbo case which came with a 420W PSU. Over a year now and no problems with it. I think I'm going to add another gig of RAM and upgrade the video to extend the life of this system. I'll look into the 7800GS AGP cards and see what kind of deal I can get. Also would adding an extra gig be noticeable and/or worth it? That would be 4 sticks of 512mb. Thanks for the help.

[MakeYourslf2012]

I 420W PSU may not be enough for a 7800GS and 4 sticks of RAM. The 7xxx line from nVidia sucks alot of power.

[glc]

I'd get a 7800GS, another gig of ram, and a new power supply. Get a power supply from a good manufacturer that has a 20 or a 20+4 power connector. Aspire power supplies are overrated and not particularly stable and a 7800GS may drive it goofy. If you get a real good 20+4, you can reuse it when you do upgrade your motherboard later and get into the PCI-E world.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817103931