Upgrade advice, please

[SanJoseBen]

I accidentally caused a little mobo fire on my Athlon 64 3000+ system. I have under $750 to spend on an upgrade keeping costs down is imperative. 600$ would be better. I use my system for gaming and light video work, mostly compression.

Here's what I had (Built ~2.5 years ago):

Athlon 64 3000+ Socket 754 (Newcastle 2GHz, 512K l2 cache)
MSI K8N Neo Mobo
Antec TruePower II 480W Power Supply
1 GB PC3200 DDR400 RAM (slow stuff 3-3-3-8)
Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB AGP
200 GB ATA/133 HD (can't remember exact brand WD or Hitachi probably)
SoundBlaster Live!
BTI Cheapy 8x DVD+/-RW (no DL)
Floppy Drive
Tower Case w/ 5 Fans

It was a good system. It was speedy and decent for most undemanding games. (Wife & I into WoW right now.)

Ok, so I'm replacing the CPU, RAM, Mobo, & GPU.
Here's what I picked out:

Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 $116.99
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 2.13 GHz $225.00
GeIL 1GB 2x512 MB GX21GB6400DCK $129.99
Sapphire Radeon X1900XT 256 $249.99
Total $721.97
(Prices @ NewEgg)

So keeping everything else, how does this look? Is 480W enough of a PS? Does the Radeon require any extra power? How does this work? Molex connector on the mobo? Odd connector on the card itself? I don't know if my power supply has any pci-e power connections if such a thing exists.

I was also considering the Asus P5B ($146.99) and P5B Deluxe ($194.99). Of course I would like a faster processor but money is a concern. Also I was looking at the Radeon X1900GT 256MB ($199.99)

I wouldn't have minded a SLI or CrossFire setup either, but again the budget. For the price ($200-$250) it seems like the X1900 GT or XT 256 is the way to go vs. an nVidia based card. Am I crazy? (not a fanboy of either platform, but an appreciator of both.)

I picked that GeIL RAM because it was under 1.95 volts (is 1.8V) which I hear some mobos can't go over. Never heard of GeIL. Is it a good brand?

So advice? Any substiutions? Better ideas for more bang for the buck? Is it all moot because it'll be 2-3x the speed of my Athlon no matter which Core 2 Duo I get?

Thanks enthusiasts!

B.

 

[will14]

Depending on ratio of gaming to compressing videos.
I might suggest the 6400/6600 and cheaper video card.
A cheaper one would fly through everything now still mostly(especially wow) and if/when DX10 becomes viable will probably be about the time you get sick of your vid card.
If you want the highest settings possible in wow though and just occasionally compress videos etc. Then go with the better video card as processor won't bottleneck your gaming.

 

[SanJoseBen]

I posted the same post in General Homebuilt. Please use that forum instead, thx.

SJB