Inexpensive as feasible with reused mobo and cpu

[promoth]

I'm trying to decide if it is worth it to build with a mobo and CPU that were gifted to me and what parts to get to go with this older hardware. I'm wanting to build a cheap casual gaming rig.

The two components gifted were an E6550 w/ heat-sink and an Asus P5N-E SLI mobo.
I will have to buy a power supply, ram, hdd, and video card. I have a case and monitor.

With this mobo and cpu and my needs, is it going to make sense to have a $100 video card and 4GB of ram, bigger psu, etc? Or could I just get a under $50 video card, 2GB ram, and so on and be good to go?

This mobo has 16x SLI, not sure if that makes a difference. I have a 1280x1024 monitor right now but I may upgrade 22-24” in a year.

Thanks for any advice given.

ASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131142

 

[Proximon]

The PCI-E slots operate in X8 mode in SLI, but that's not huge given your budget.

You'll need to be clearer about your usage. You can probably OC the E6550 a bit and squeeze some time out of it.

Ignore the SLI and get a single 4850, and a quality PSU.

To help you decide, you might look at it this way. To build a platform with about the same speed CPU and a more upgradeable motherboard....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103687
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128397
You are looking at about $155 for the CPU and MB, plus about $25 extra for DDR3 RAM

So you can pay $180 for more upgradeability now, or go with what you have, but your RAM purchase won't have much reuse.

 

[jitpublisher]

You will have to buy a power supply, ram, hdd, and video card for any new build, so what the heck?
This board, though older, is not done for yet. You can upgrade it to a quad, or do some overclocking, or do both, and with a decent video card, still run with the best of them.