$650 AMD gaming machine?

[TightBudget]

First of all, I apologize if I broke any forum rules or anything. Second of all, sorry, I am a newbie at computer building and I just chose the parts based on price at newegg.com. If someone can give me a recommendation with other parts, that would be great. It really needs to be under $650. Because of beef with Intel in the past, I prefer an AMD machine.


-Rosewill R218-P-BK Black SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case ($25.00)

-Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" hard drive ($55.00)

-ASRock M3A770DE AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard ($60.00)

-SAPPHIRE 100283L Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready ($175.00)

-COOLER MASTER Elite 460 RS-460-PSAR-J3 460W ATX12V V2.31 Power Supply ($35.00)

-A-DATA Gaming Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) ($103.00)

-AMD Athlon II X4 635 Propus 2.9GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Processor ($120.00)

So far, that's: $573.00

Freebies:

-Windows XP (32 Bit). ....someone told me that I cannot play new games and it can't detect 4 gig of ram on 32 bit version?

-I do have a Microsoft Vista upgrade for Christmas but my friend told me not to install it.. since I'm on a budget, should I install XP and "upgrade" to vista?

-DVD Drive
-CD-RW Drive


Thank you in advance.

[glc]

1. Western Digital hard drives are more reliable than Seagates these days.
2. I'd advise against an Asrock motherboard, spend a few bucks more and get an Asus.
3. Power supply is questionable, i'd spend a bit more and get a 500 watt Antec Basiq.

32 bit XP will see and use about 3.25 gb ram. Read the system requirements for the games you want to play for OS compatibility. XP stops at DirectX 9.

[TightBudget]

Can you recommend me a good Asus motherboard for a low price and can handle DDR3 1600? I found some on Newegg but it says most of them on my price range "1600(O.C)". I don't have experience nor am I familiar with overclocking. Do I need special cooling if I were to put DDR3 at 1600 Mhz ram?

Also found this one from MSI: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130235

[glc]

DDR3-1600 is not necessary. 1333 is plenty fast enough. You can certainly put 1600 in, but just run it at 1333.

Sorry, I can't recommend a specific motherboard, I only do Intel builds.

[TightBudget]

Ram, Graphics card, processor?

I'm trying to build a gaming machine and someone told me that it would be:

1. Graphics Card
2. Processor
3. Ram


Whereas 2 years ago, it was:

1. Processor
2. Graphics Card
3. Ram

[TightBudget]

sorry about posting so much, I'm just a little excited. I did some shopping and found this good deal as well:

Rose Will ATX Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811147073

Western Digital 500 gig: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136358

AMD Athlon II X4 635 Propus 2.9GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Processor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103702

4 gigs of ram @ 1600 MHZ: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820211409

Corsair 550w: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139004

MSI NF750-G55 AM3 NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130235

Radeon HD 5770: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102858

WINDOWS VISTA UPGRADE: FREE


TOTAL PRICE: $658

[EzyStvy]

1. Graphics Card
2. Processor
3. Ram

[kilgoretrout]

1. Graphics Card
2. Graphics Card
3. Graphics Card

Not trying to be funny, but with any reasonably modern processor and ram configuration(2GB or better), your clear limiting factor is your graphics card.

[glc]

Threads merged, we prefer that all questions about a build be kept in one thread. Thank you.