New PC Help!

[SteveAH10]

I hope that I am not duplicating previous posts but I am unsure of what to pick out for my basic system build. I looked at other posts which is what I used to settle on my proposed parts.
I am looking to upgrade my current system listed below.

Asus P4P800 Deluxe, Intel P4 2.8, 800Mhz Northwood, (2*256) Kingston pc3200 ram, TDK 510 Dual Format DVD Burner, Sony 52X CD Burner Combo-DVD 16X, Western Digital 250gig 7200 ATA 133 8mb cache, ATI 9600Pro 128Mb, Antec Sonata Case 425mhz PS, Samsung SyncMaster 930B Monitor, and of Course Win XP Pro SP2.

I am looking at the
ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard

Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory -Cas Latency 4

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz 2M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor

SAPPHIRE 100205L Radeon HD 2400XT 256MB 64-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card

I already have a 200gig sata HD and I would like to reuse the antec case.

I primarily use MS Office, some video and mpg ripping but not a lot. Internet use and some minor gaming such as MS flight sim, Harpoon, and such. I don’t really game a lot though. I use firewire a lot for my iPod, and USB devices as well.
I would most definitely would appreciate any ideas for other Mobo’s, video cards, and processor. When the Pentium naming was 2-3-4 I could follow now I cannot tell what is what? And what processor is better than the other.
Steve

[SteveAH10]

What about this Processor too?
Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Conroe 2.33GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor -

[The Village Idiot]

The ATi 2400s haven't performed too well in benchmarks, if your looking for budget it's best to go for an NVIDIA 8600GT. Plus your using an NVIDIA motherboard so you do get some performance gains if you use an NVIDIA graphics card.

Asus make solid motherboards and to be honest, if your not looking at heavy gaming use, go for the 650i chipset (The one you have) as its the same as higher models only they can use 2 graphics cards for 'ultimate performance' personally i'd just get a better graphics card if there was one.

Your processor is a bit old and you can get comparitivly better value for money, i'd recommend the equivilant E6320 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...5015&Tpk=E6320 ) which is slightly cheaper than the E6300 and with double the L2 Cache, if you want to spread a bit further then you could get the E6550 with is much faster than the E6300 and the same price ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...5030&Tpk=E6550 )

[Katreat]

Could you give us an actual budget then posters could really try to give you the best bang for the buck.

You might check Toms Hardware processor ranking to really understand where the different ones rank, it is hard with all the new numbers arriving daily. Same goes for sound cards, they do a nice job of lining them up for you

Kat

[SteveAH10]

Well w/o the OS HD and DVD drives, I was hoping to keep it under $750.00 us dollars

[kamikazi_tom]

Yeaaaa, if that ATi card is running at 64bit memory your so don't want to use that. That is almost rediculous. The Nvidia DX10 cards are performing much better at this time. If you've got a little extra money to spend invest in an 8800 model, it will get you through a while.

Tom =]

[Chazell29]

Originally Posted by SteveAH10 I hope that I am not duplicating previous posts but I am unsure of what to pick out for my basic system build. I looked at other posts which is what I used to settle on my proposed parts. I am looking to upgrade my current system listed below. Asus P4P800 Deluxe, Intel P4 2.8, 800Mhz Northwood, (2*256) Kingston pc3200 ram, TDK 510 Dual Format DVD Burner, Sony 52X CD Burner Combo-DVD 16X, Western Digital 250gig 7200 ATA 133 8mb cache, ATI 9600Pro 128Mb, Antec Sonata Case 425mhz PS, Samsung SyncMaster 930B Monitor, and of Course Win XP Pro SP2. I am looking at the ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory -Cas Latency 4 Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz 2M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor SAPPHIRE 100205L Radeon HD 2400XT 256MB 64-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card I already have a 200gig sata HD and I would like to reuse the antec case. I primarily use MS Office, some video and mpg ripping but not a lot. Internet use and some minor gaming such as MS flight sim, Harpoon, and such. I don’t really game a lot though. I use firewire a lot for my iPod, and USB devices as well. I would most definitely would appreciate any ideas for other Mobo’s, video cards, and processor. When the Pentium naming was 2-3-4 I could follow now I cannot tell what is what? And what processor is better than the other. Steve

I would go with the ASUS P5K. Here is one that is relativly inexpensive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131030

I would go with that E6750 that you posted in yoru second post if you can afford it. If not, I'd go with the E4400 over the E6300

The video card is good if you want to go ATI.

Also, with these new motherboards, they don't support IDE to well, so if your optical drive is IDE, you might want to upgrade that. I don't know what type of RAM you have in your current build and if you were planning on reusing that one, but I would check to make sure that is DDR2 not DDR. You will need DDR2 rated atleast 800mhz to keep up with todays latest games.