Need input for our upgrade choices

as we have really no idea what we are doing...well maybe just a little.

We currently have a 5 year old computer system with:
20.5 GB ultra ATA( complete intel pentium 111 600MHz system)256 KB cache
motherboard AsusTek P3V4X
Floppy drive 144
Afreey 8XIDE internal DVD drive
sound blaster live
Here is what we are thinking of getting:
Microsoft XP professionalIntel pentium 4
250 GB hard drive
512 MB dual channel DDR2SDRAM
128 MB PCI Express x 16ati's radeon x 300 Se graphics card
16 X MAX CD/DVD burner (DVD+/RW
Sound blaster Audigy 2 (D) sound card or better

We do a lot of selling and buying on ebay, my husband likes to fly the planes games, and I like the card games, frogger two and thats about it. I basically use my computer for e-mails, and as a library research system so I have a lot of favorites listed and I do like my computer fast!! We also use it alot for photos documents. Right now it is sooo slow I can't stand it anymore! I just found out that a virus must be written to my hard drive because of the way my computer is acting, also I have files I cannot get to, to delete from using that incredimail. And then when we added our norton antivirus it really slowed us down.
Any comments and help would be greatly appreciated. I noticed that some members put a $$ amount they can spend. We don't have a clue because I have not done any research...MY COMPUTER IS TOO SLOW!! but we are headed to the stores now so will have a better idea by tonight.
Thank-you
Lorraine

Sounds pretty good, I find that AMD is more cost effective so may I suggest going with:
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (socket 939)
Some socket 939 mother board, nForce 4 makes sense as it's the most modern. (nForce 4 Ultra is a nice choice).
Your hard drive will be really roomy but if that's what you think you'll need fine
512 MB of dual-channel ram is what you want but you'll notice the speed boost by getting 1 gigabyte.
For your needs a GeForce 6200 TC is probably a safe choice and what you suggested will work fine too. So long as it isn't intigrated graphics and has 128 MB's of ram or greater it should be just great.
Your optical drive choice will be just fine
the sound card isn't too important really but your selection is very nice
XP is obviously the way to go here, and professional is pretty usefull in some cases
http://www.newegg.com/ is good place to get aquainted with the components you want, compUSA may have what you're looking for.

Thank-you very much. We will check into your suggestions. I think we will be happy with this arrangement also, but we may go with the XP office instead. we were told at the stores to check into the same site you referred us to so off I go......


Lorraine

if you buy windows xp, professional is the same thing with a little beefier networking. If this is your only computer, home edition will be good.

thermaltake power supply
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=17-153-006&DEPA=0
Very reliable, stable and very affordable.

1gb of ram
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-156-020&depa=0
reviews look very promising

athlon 64 3000+
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-501&depa=0
this should be very fast, and stable

msi k2n neo4 platinum motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-130-484&depa=1
a motherboard with the chipset exfoliate was talking about

asus fx 6600 video card
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-121-180&depa=1
if your husband wants to play all the latest games, like doomIII or Halflife 2 this will be great

western digital 120gb hard drive
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-165&depa=1
very good hard drive. I have 2 right now and I would highly recommend it. I have windows, 6 games, 43 movies, around 70 music albums on this computer and I'm only using about 70-80gb.

Your opticals listed will be sufficient, be sure to get lite-on or samsung.

sounds is integrated to the motherboard

Those are some nice components the ninja but it may be a little hard to come by as they're not planning on actually building their own computer (right?) so they'd have to order from some seller who offers AMD's procs as well as the other configurations.

I've seen some places that will custom build a PC tailored to your specs. Just can't remember any

i dun think u reli demand that much, unless you want a top of the line system id just recommend a good athlon XP package which can definately benefit all your needs, xp costs from like 300$ to 600$, higher too obviously, but you're not gonna be designing graphics or playing high graphic demanding games, i think that integrated graphics might even work for those games, and its a huge money saver. I use pricegrabber, but newegg too is very reliable, tho sometimes they overprice muchly. cheers.

That's true ninja, I forgot about that option, (good link too). I like Newegg too, though I can't think of any time I felt it was overly pricey?

zRoCkIsAdDiCtInG said:

i dun think u reli demand that much, unless you want a top of the line system id just recommend a good athlon XP package which can definately benefit all your needs, xp costs from like 300$ to 600$, higher too obviously, but you're not gonna be designing graphics or playing high graphic demanding games, i think that integrated graphics might even work for those games, and its a huge money saver. I use pricegrabber, but newegg too is very reliable, tho sometimes they overprice muchly. cheers.

Click to expand...

I have no clue what your talking about. Athlon XP's are old, dead horses now. They still work fine, hell i'm using one, but there is no need to buy one unless you want to upgrade in a year. Onboard graphics are only available on certain motherboard, they also use ram from the sticks you put it thus you need atleast 1 gig and perform poorly. I've never found newegg overly pricey

Unless you plan on building your computer yourself I would go with a trusted make, then buy an entirely new computer.

Your mobo and processor need to be overhauled and there's no reason not to go with 1 GB of ram especially if you are using 'value' ram. The thing you get when you buy a new computer with a vendor is they usually offer the OS free out of the box and set up with software too. Check your options you can probably find a system similar to your specs for under 1k.

I also agree with everyone that you should go for the Athlon processor build. You typically save 100-200 bucks and can put those savings into better components elsewhere in your system.

Many online vendors will build customizable computers for you, even the big guys like dell and gateway allow you to configure some parts online.

Sorry for flame, wont do it again!

Can we please refrain from flaming?


Thanks.