Trying to upgrade for 300 or 400 dollars... please help.

I know you guys are probably thinking, hot damn another "I wanna upgrade for cheap" thread... but hey, a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do.

My brother is currently using my old computer, it's a modified Compaq Presario SR1230NX. It's got a 160GB 7200RPM hdd that I was thinking of re-using for him, DVD writer/CD writer combo drive, Regular CD Drive and that's about it for re-using... just the drives, the monitor, keyboard and mouse.

The system he's using now is an AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (2.2ghz barton I think) and is like 434 socket I think. He's got 1gb pc2700 memory and an ATI 9200 video card. I've got the above mentioned things and this case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811144026 that I got for free from a friend. I think it's a pretty decent case, and he's already said he likes it. I figure I could throw a couple extra fans in it and it'd be great for him.

His birthday is coming up relatively soon, and Christmas not far off from that, so I figure if I can build him up a decent system for 3-400 and surprise the crap out of him that'd be awesome.

Here's some games that he plays regularly (or would like to):
(Also for these games, his monitor maxes out at 1280x1024 so that's not too bad)

Oblivion (Would like to, he plays on mine now) (He wouldn't care about low graphic settings or anything, just as long as he could play at a reasonable framerate)
Battle For Middle Earth 2 (with expansion)
Unreal Tournament 2k4
Kotor 2

He'd love to play Overlord, but it seems to me there's some pretty high req's on that game.

Not sure what else really, it'd just be nice for him to be able to look at the game shelf and be able to play more than like 5 games on it.

So I've got case, monitor, inputs, and drives.

Here's kinda what I was thinking:

Gigabyte P35 DS3L motherboard... I keep hearing good things about it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] P35%2bDS3L
+$95.00

Intel Allendale E2140 1.6ghz (I hear it's good to OC on stock cooling? otherwise I was thinking the E4400 and no oc)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819116037
+76.00

Really not sure on video card, something like
Radeon x1950GT ~ $115.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102034
or
GeForce 7600GT ~ $90.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130062

Really not sure on video card, And it's getting up there in price now, here's ram below:

Could be the G.Skill DDR2 800 PC2 6400
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231098
(That's what I use actually in my Q6600 build and I'm lovin it)
+$80.00


Maybe this psu:
Antec NeoHE 550w (I've got the 500 version actually in mine)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817103941
~$110

It's about 476 or so now, and for that price I could do better with AMD I think.

Maybe I'm just not making such good choices, perhaps you guys could help me out (=

I just want to do something nice for my brother.

Thanks in advance.

Yeah, at this price range I'd go for an AMD. Try this build: http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersio [...] er=5984292

You could choose some better parts if you wanted:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817341010
http://www.newegg.com/product/prod [...] 6814127287

It should be very nice, I included a hard drive since I doubt you would want to reuse an old IDE hard drive (at least not as a primary).

This one looks pretty nice: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128043

I have 2 ASUS 6150 micros boards and have never had a heating problem. Boards are in Antec Sonata II cases with on 120mm fan Forgot to put the site for CPU comparison. While AMD is not as fast or overclock as well as Intel they are no bad. If you're on a tight budget for gaming , you're better off with a slower, less expensive CPU and better video card.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html

GIGABYTE GA-945GCM-S2 $55
Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 $126
CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB DDR2 533 $35 (X2 = $70)
FSP ATX12V 400W $40
SAPPHIRE 100199L Radeon X1950GT 256MB $115

total $406 with 2 GB ram

GA-945GC IS OLD intel chipset

you can get a amd cpu for less with a better MB.

use the money saved for faster ram as you can get 2x1gb DDR2 800 for about $80 after rebate.
and a better psu.

At least on Oblivion the X19x0 series tends to do better than equivalent 7 series N'vidia cards... so if that's important you should probably get the X1950 Pro. Its a better card than the 7600GT anyway. http://www23.tomshardware.com/grap [...] &chart=318 You can definitely save money on the PSU, and you can probably get better bang for the buck with an AMD system... so basically reiterating what has already been said.

-mcg

You mean 2GB (just clarifying).

I'm pretty sure I'd be fine having an older board like that... for $50 I can't argue, especially since, if it will run C2D that means that the E4400 I plan to put in it can someday be an E6600 or 6550 or whatever... you know what I'm saying? I can upgrade to a high end dual core later on, and still have it run ok (at least from my understanding). If not then please let me know.

As far as being limited to 2GB, I don't intend to go over that anyway really, so it shouldn't be a problem, and again for $50 I can't really complain.

Thanks for the help and advice from everyone.

you may wana consider a amd cpu. the 4000x2 is dirt cheap and pretty fast, the rest looks good but go for the x1950

I have to agree with everyone else. For under $400, AMD is the best choice. The good mobo's are cheaper than Intel, and their CPU's are cheaper as well.

I'm considering the same machine for my family bill payer/DVD burner.

What jtt283 posted is a good upgrade path. However I recommend the 8600GTS video card over the X1950Pro. The former is newer and DirectX 10 compatible. The Pro is generally a little bit faster. Although I have read reviews that report the GTS is faster in some games, and in general the GTS is faster on new games while the Pro is faster on the old ones - leaving me to beleive that the Pro advantage might dwindle over time. Also I read that DVD picture quality is better with the GTS, if that is a consideration. And you can get the GTS on sale for $133 AR.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814127284

Pous - before spending the $400 you might consider a more modest upgrade - just the PSU and AGP card. Obviously it would not give you as much of a performance increase - but it is an option, assuming your brother's MB actually has a 939 socket rather than 434. Please see this AGP upgrade post from today's forum - and particularly note the article by Cleve with benchmarks on an upgrade. Also note that since your bro's CPU is a 3200 - your performance increase should not be as constrained as the 2500 used in the review.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] e-opinions