I am in the process of putting together parts to upgrade this old work horse
Currently I am looking at a ECS Goal 3+ and Sempron 3300+ and Iwould like to know if anyone can tell me what the OB Video card would be or if it would be better for me to get a PCI-E card as this machine will now be used mainly for gaming.

Also the HD's I have right now I'd like to use as piggyback drives but I notice that most of the newer drives out there are SATA and my older 80- gig is a IDE-ATA if anyone could tell me the difference or any other information that would be great

Also if anyone has any reviews or comments on my choice of MB and CPU that would be greatly appreciated

Thanx

All onboard graphics are not going to be able to cope with the majority of games. They're just not designed for it. You will need a separate graphics card.

Socket 754 boards may still be available but they're not all that upgradeable, as the platform was dropped in favour of Socket 939 and then AM2. If you do buy 754, upgradable will be restricted.

If you're going to game it usually works out just as cheap to buy AM2, a decent processor, some DDR2 memory and a PCI-Ex graphics card and have the ability to upgrade it easily in a few months time.

Regarding IDE/SATA - the future of all the input/output devices like hard drives and CD units is SATA. The legacy ATA mode is officially dead according to Intel, but the motherboard manufacturers took it upon themselves to provide a legacy IDE port, though some AM2 boards continue to offer two IDE ports. A lot of branded computers don't come with any IDE ports at all.

everything connects thru and interacts thru the mobo...don't skimp on this component or you will be severely limited on what you can do down the road...