Upgrade mine or build from scratch?

[Joey Sarks]

I have a Dell but it's falling apart. The vid card they gave me is horribly old, my psu just burned out so i got a new 400w one, and the thing arrived with a bad motherboard and wireless so i got that replaced last year. However my processor is a nice 2.4ghz quadcore and it's also got 6gigs of ram. Should I attempt to upgrade this or just build one from scratch and sell the Dell to my buddy whos computer is like 10 years old...he'd be so happy with this one for like $400-500. If I attempt a custom build how do you think this would fair? Things i'll be using it for are MMORPG, Blu-Ray, normal web browsing and word processing, and production work with Ableton and plug ins.

$70 - $100 = LanCool PC-K62 Chassis
$80 - $120 = ASUS P7P55-LX Motherboard
$290 = Intel Core i7 870 2.93GHz LGA 1156 Quad-Core Processor
$70 = 600 Watt Corsair PSU
$175 - $235 = Single 1GB GDDR5 ATI Radeon HD 6850
$40 - $80 = 4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3 1333Mhz (2x 2GB) Dual Channel Memory ($80 for 8gbs)
$90 = 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black - SATA-III, 6Gb/s, 7,200RPM, 64MB Cache HDD
$100 = LiteOn 12X Blu-ray Disc (BD) Burner
$55 = D-Link Wireless DWA-556 Xtreme N PCI Express Desktop Adapter (Internal)
$180 = Windows 7 Home Premium Full
$90 - 175 = Soundcard, maybe M-Audio 2496 or Creative PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series Sound Card (need both Stereo and analogue for computer speakers if available)
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Lowest $1240 - Highest $1495
Bluray could be subtracted if I take the one out of present computer.

Any advice on ways to save money or things to boost on, and soundcard advice would be greatly appreciated, ty in advance.

 

[cmichael138]

Why the D-Link adaptor?
I would first try the sound quality onboard audio of the AUS MB before shelling out $ for a soundcard. If you're not satisfied, you could then purchase one.

Good luck!

 

[Joey Sarks]

Well I don't know bout wireless stuff at all, i just snagged something off a list for that.
And my integrated 24bit in my dell slacks fast, once I start throwing effects in it bogs down pretty quick.

 

[cmichael138]

You only need wireless adaptor on a desktop if you don't have a direct cable connection for a wireless router.

You'll be surprised how much better the ASUS onboard sound is over your Dell. Give it a try before you put money out for a sound card.