Poor man's upgrade

Hi folks, I just need to get into something more current here. My current specs are:

A64 3000+
Asus K8U-X
1.5G 3200
80G Maxtor 7,200
256 7600GS agp
Lite-On dvd
SB Live
Okia 450/combined out 422w
XP Pro SP3 (32)

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: Soon as I feel good about it ! BUDGET RANGE: $300 to $400

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: gaming: BF2,MW2 Surfing

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: case, keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS)

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: Newegg Tigerdirect COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: USA

PARTS PREFERENCES: Asus or Gigabyte boards,Asus, Evga, Msi, Pny or Sapphire cards
OVERCLOCKING: Maybe SLI OR CROSSFIRE: no

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1440x900

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:


I originally started looking to build around an E7500,but have hoped to trim back going AMD. Been chewing and surfing for some time now and I've come up with this so far..

CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103681

MB: ASUS M4A77TD AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131603

Memory: G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-8500CL7D-2GBNQ - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231149

Video:SAPPHIRE 100289L Radeon HD 5670 (Redwood) 1GB 128-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card w/ATI Eyefinity - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102869

I'm at $335 with that.

I know for a few more $ each way I could get more, but I would just like to get up in the neighborhood with the most possibility of future upgrades for now. (Hoping thee AM3, DDR3 and dx11 card do that)

The 40 I save by not going to the Pllx2 550 can go towards the bigger psu you folks are going to suggest...Is the possibility that the 550 I receive might be able to have thee extra cores unlocked really worth the extra 40 ? I've looked at a few benches and gosh... the 250 is up in there isn't ?

I know there are better video cards out there by far,but with the low consumption and dx11 it's up in there too isn't ?

Thoughts and suggestions please !

Well your system isn't going to need a powerful PSU at all, so I'd suggest this Antec EarthWatts Green EA-430D Green 430W Continuous power ATX12V v2.3 / EPS 12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC $55 free shipping. I don't know if you will want to be able to get a more powerful and power hungry card or processor into that machine at any point, but it can probably do up to a 5770 and 100W TDP processor fine, altho a unit with a higher rated wattage would probably be preferred in that case. If you're prepared to spend around $70 then you can get a PSU that is more likely to be able to deal with upgrades.
I have found a CPU & RAM combo that without rebate is pretty close in price to the RAM and CPU you chose combined.
AMD Athlon II X2 250 & OCZ Gold 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1333 CAS 9 1.65V
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.313901
$140 + $6 shipping for the RAM with a $10 rebate, which if you took advantage of, would end up the same as going with the G.Skill if you include shipping.

Out of those I think the BFG is the best, however the Thermaltake ends up being $60 if you take the rebate and if you are willing to spend $60 on a PSU, and willing to go after rebates you can get this: OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W $90 with $30 rebate. Which also has a large choice of combo options.
The changes you've made are decent.

Oww HD 5670 i would consider overpriced for the performance it stacks up vs HD 4k cards so perhaps consider this HD 4850 @ $94 free ship?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] -_-Product

The general recommendation around these parts is to go with the new 500 GB platter drives, basically the Samsung Spinpoint F3 500GB or 1TB (currently sold out on newegg) or the Seagate 7200.12s 500 GB model here. $5 more, free shipping.

Thank you for the Seagate pointer coldsleep ! Having gone over as many old posts as I could, I had picked up on the Spinpoints, but couldn't find them. I knew there where differences I wasn't catching. ty

batuchka .... I agree with you completely! The dx11 performance of the 5670 stinks. But having been force to upgrade in the past (nvdia) due to dx, not failure, I just can't bring myself to buy backwards on the tec side though. So thank you for piping up ! I decided to back off on the cpu side and go heavier on the gpu side.

Here is what we have coming:

Athlonll x3 435
Asus M4A77TD
2G G.Skill PC3 10600
500G Seagate
1G Sapphire 5770
BFG 550 psu
(64bit & more mem later)

Definitely over from my original thoughts, but it's what I would call a bare minimum for MY upgrade at this point. Thanks for helping me keep a lid on it !

Thanks for all your thoughts and suggestions ! Tom's is always one of the first places I check for info.