Pentium 4 System Upgrade

replace your cpu first.

$46- Intel Celeron G530 Dual-Core 2.4GHz
$50- BIOSTAR H61MGC Intel H61 LGA1155
$26- G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333MHz

To change the processor almost certainly means changing the motherboard and RAM. Chances are, you have DDR memory when today's systems use DDR3. In addition, you have an AGP video card as well and AGP is no longer used so you'll also have to replace the video card. On top of that, the PSU you have may not be sufficient enough to handle today's hardware. Thus, you may be better off doing a new build.

I think your system isn't fast enough even for watching Blu ray movies (encoding, etc).
Upgrading CPU means upgrade motherboard and RAM as well, so you'll better with a whole new PC, sell you PC and BUILD your own HTPC...  

Thank you for your responses but I probably was not clear in what I was trying to say. What actually happened was that a power surge damaged my CPU and GPU and so I want to upgrade the damaged components to be used in the existing 478 Pentium PC.

The damaged components were a 2.4ghz CPU and a nVidia Geforce 7300GT video card. I want to replace them with a faster but compatible processor as well as video card. Since my initial post, I went ahead and bought a 3.06Ghz Intel processor. I am contemplating purchasing an ATI Radeon 3650 AGP video card if you do not recommend the 4650 or can suggest a more suitable AGP card for this system.

I am running windows XP SP3, using a 450 watt PSU and 2G RAM. Don't mind if I am caused to upgrade my OS to Vista. I await your knowledgeable recommendations.

Thanks everyone

buying a cpu upgrade on your pc will cost more than buy a newer pc. Old cpus dont get cheaper with time. Only new cpus does

the 3.06 Processor I bought is a Pentium 4.

Yes, but are you sure it is compatible with your board. If it is an LGA 775 Pentium 4, it won't work on a Socket 478 board, and not all Socket 478 P4s will necessarily work on all Socket 478 boards. Also, unless you have extremely modest requirements for what you intend to do with your PC, it really would be more worthwhile to build a new system at this point. Socket 478 P4 systems are close to ten years old in some cases, even if you replace broken components, there is a good chance that something else will break down in the near future. In the end, it may be more worthwhile in the long run to go for a new build rather than trying to stretch out the life of extremely outdated tech.

thats not called a upgrade

I do have a new PC that runs window 7 with an ASUS P7 board, a ASUS 5870 GPU and 6G RAM a 600 watt PSU but I want to have a pc running XP3 for certain applications.
I wish you would have responded specifically to my post because I am no further ahead but thanks anyway for taking the time to respond.

Everything refers to P478. It is the core clock and RAMDAC that prompted me to seek help because I am not sure if my board would be compatible with a video card with specs better than the Nvidia 7300gt which the ATI mentioned above are.

A Pentium 4 isn't going to run Blu-Ray, regardless of the GPU you have in the system. You know, you can just stick an extra HDD into your new computer and install windows XP onto that. Dual-booting is rather easy to do (just do some light reading), and you get all the benefits of new hardware for the older OS. That is exactly what I have done. You have worded it rather difficult for me to follow. Maybe its the pain meds, but I got to ask... are you a native English speaker? Either way, now, to answer your question.

Yes, if the ATI card is a AGP card, it will work in your system. The 4650 *should* work, looking at the specs I googled there will be enough power. If it doesn't work, just return the card and exchange it for the 3650 card.

If the 3.06 Ghz Pentium 4 chip you bought is the same socket as your mother board, then it *may* work. Unfortunately, not every motherboard supports every processor, even if it is the same socket. From what info I can find, the processor is supported. You may have to update the bios, but the page I'm looking at says it supports the socket 478 Pentium 4 3.06 Ghz processor.

Hope this helps.

Thank you so much I did a little research before I made the decisions and from all indications, the hardware seemed ok. My concern was the FSB compatibility as I know hardly anything about core clock speed and RAMDAC as I mentioned.
I am just trying not to get rid of this PC since the board still works.
I intend to update the bios once everything is installed.

Thanks for the suggestion on running another HDD in my new PC. I intend to but it will be LINUX once I find a good tutorial.

Thank you phyco126 you have been a great help.

Not a problem!