Will this still be an upgrade?

You'll notice a difference. But I overclocked my "c" p4 by 25%. Don't know if your soyo board permits this. I just set the cpu fsb to 250 in the bios, and the memory dividers in the bios worked. If you go ahead with the upgrade, ditch the ecs board for a different brand if possible. The difference in price is sometimes only $10. I like asus or msi. My current compaq uses an msi g31 board. For the video card, use the onboard video of the g31 until you can afford a decent card. Newegg has a gigabyte 256 meg version of the 8800gt for $77 after rebate that might work better for occassional gaming. It's a low end version of the 8800gt, so the price is about right for what you get. I use the "pin mod" for my e4300 for an easy 33% overclock without affecting the memory or voltage. You can use it on boards that don't have any bios adjustments, like mine.

Gulp!!!!!!

Honestly, get a hp/dell/gateway etc etc on sale when your wallet permits and slap in a video card. Can get that done for like 250-400 depending on pricing and sale at the time.

Not really married to the card at all (just sorta picked one at random) more the board/processor. Looks like the short verdict is:

The processor is fine and can stand to be overclocked (Don't know if I'll do this, but eh)
The board is cheap (obviously) and obviously more expensive is better (who knew)
The card in the chipset there is better than the 8400, which I'm guessing is better than my current 9800 pro.


If this is the case, then even just the board and processor (which come out to <$100 btw, which is << whole new PC) will fit my needs.

Note that the wallet won't permit much more than $150 until next year due to the upcoming nuptials