Looking for suggestions on upgrading 4-year old system

[edit]Look at the end of the page for what I plan to upgrade, taking into consideration everyone's suggestions as well as some offline.

Hi everyone,

I'll get straight to the point. And thanks for all the help in advance.

I'd like to be able to run some newer games, not with all the eye candy but decently. I'm looking to spend under $1,000 (CDN, but that doesn't really matter with the exchange rate nowadays, does it hehe)

The following was bought for $810, October 2004.

Motherboard: P4PE-2X, with 2 RAM Slots, 4 PCI, 4 hard drive bays

CPU: Pentium 4, 2.4 GHz

Case: Antec Sonata

Power supply (from case's manual, not confirmed): Antec TruePower ATX12V, max 360W
20-pin main power
6-pin aux power
4-pin +12V power for motherboard
5 to 7 4-pin peripheral power connectors
2 to 3 4-pin floppy power for drives

RAM: 1280 MB
256 MB, DDR 333 PC 2700
1024 MB, DDR - don't know other details (not included in original purchase)

Hard drives:
WD800BB-55JKA0 (80.03 GB)
WD1600JB-75GVC0 (160.00 GB) (not included in original purchase)

Video card: ATI Radeon 9600 PRO (128 MB DDR)

Sound: SoundMAX Integrated Audio

A really bad mouse that needs replacing

Monitor, speakers, headphones, keyboard all good.

Thank you!

Thanks for your response, Andy.

The Antec Sonata is a really nice case, and the two hard drives are serving me just fine (I have a combined ~1 TB of portable memory which I use for most of my files). The DVD writer is good too. There are about 15 barebones, between 5 and 20 years old, lying around the house - I don't want to add another one =)

But I'm ok with upgrading everything else.

Q6600 $190 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115018 )

Asus P5Q Pro $150 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131299 )

or

Gigabyte GA-EP45 DS3R $150 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128344 )

4GB PC8500 OCZ RAM $95 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820227298 )

Xigmatek S-1283 $37 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835233003 )

Xigmatek Backplate $7 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835233019 )

Asus' ATI 4850 $195 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814121253 )

Antec Earthwatts 500W $90 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817371007 )

$765 (you may have room for a stronger processor, better graphics card, nicer case, etc.)

That would negate the whole reason/benefit for upgrading. Your current motherboard likely doesn't support any contemporary processors/RAM...without a contemporary processor there's no reason to bother, really.

Here's what I have so far, using the input from this forum as well as some friends of mine.

2x OCZ Platinum XTC REV.2 PC2-6400 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-800 CL4-4-4-15 240PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit
$139.98, http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=19337

OCZ Platinum XTC PC2-6400 4GB 2X2GB DDR2-800 CL5-4-4-15 DDR2 240PIN Dual Channel Memory Kit
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=25352
$90

ASUS P5Q Pro ATX LGA775 P45 DDR2 2PCI-E16 Crossfire 3PCI-E1 2PCI SATA2 Sound GBLAN eSATA Motherboard
$154.40
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=30418

EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800GT 600MHZ 512MB 1.8GHZ DDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDTV Out Video Card *IR-$50*
$169.99
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=27704

OCZ X-750 Equalizer Laser Gaming Mouse 2500DPI USB Dual Laser Engine
$29.99
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=22874

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Dual Core Processor LGA775 3.0GHZ Wolfdale 1333FSB 6MB Retail
$205.37
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=27784

Total: $700 (a few cents short)

Nope, I meant to list the one I listed, so I'd have 4 sticks of 1GB. I do agree it's easier to expand in the future. The price is better: 90 (after rebate) for 2x2GB, or 140 (after 2 rebates) for 4x1GB. So yes I'll change this, thanks!