[Dragon306]

okay so this morning i made a nice find: intact and working socket a 2200+ 'Microtel' computer in the trash! running Xandros, strangely enough. it beats my current P3 1.0ghz so i wish to biuld it up as my "good" system. by "wannabe gamer" i mean that i wannabe able to play most modern games on it, even if i have to lower the settings to do so. the games Far Cry and NFS Underground 2 are pushing the limits of my current setup.

it had/has:
- ASROCK K7S41GX motherboard
- AMD Sempron 2200+ socket a CPU
- 128mb DDR333 PC2700 RAM (single stick)
- 18gb Seagate hard drive (soon to be pulled for 500mhz machine that needs HDD)
- integreated sound, network, and video
- 52x CD-ROM
- 300 watt power supply

plans so far:
- AMD Athlon XP 2800+ socket A CPU (possibly 3000+ or 3200+ depending on how much is cost)
- 2x 1gb DDR333 PC2700 RAM sticks
- 200gb 7200rpm IDE hard drive (maybe 16mb cache if cost isnt too much more then 8mb)
- 16x DVD+/-RW drive and 16x DVD-ROM drive
- 450 watt power supply

my big questions for you guys is:

a) does this thing have any potential or am i just throwing cash away??

b) what graphcis card should i use?? definitely not the biult in 64 shared. i was consider a Radeon 9700 or 9800 series 256mb card, or maybe a Nvidia geforce 6600 series 256mb. AGP 8x interface. what do you guys think??

motherboard specs, if interested:
http://www.asrock.co...UCT/K7S41GX.htm

i do not have more then a couple hundred dollars to work with maybe three or four and since i got the thing for free and currently i am running a P3 it is a good place to start plus anything will be an improvement over my game-tired P3 1.0ghz.

ps. i buy everything off eBay, for lower prices 95% of the time.

and do 3200+ Socket A processors with a 333mhz FSB even exist?? because the highest 333mhz bus processor i could find was 3000+ on eBay and you can find almost anything on there. the board only supports up to 333mhz bus speed and lists highest processor for A-XP as 3200+ 333mhz FSB.

guess i go with 3000+ or maybe just 2800+ depending on cost

what AGP graqphic card??

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don't bother, now days you can build a decent gaming machine for less than 800 (american dollars/display not included) go to www.extremetech.com under the building section and you will see the specs of their sub 800 gaming rig. Right now is a great time for a high end amd system with the price of x2 4200 hitting rock bottom at 200 dollars (cause of the core 2 duo from intel). So spend the extra 300 dollar on a decent cpu and mobo and build your system around that. With a 4200 1 gig of ram and any gfx card better than x800 on the ati side or 6800 on the nvidia side and all the new games should be playable on medium settings.
Hope this helped.
some online stores that you should browse
www.newegg.com states
www.ncix.com canada

[†Gladiator†]

don't bother, now days you can build a decent gaming machine for less than 800 (american dollars/display not included) go to www.extremetech.com under the building section and you will see the specs of their sub 800 gaming rig. Right now is a great time for a high end amd system with the price of x2 4200 hitting rock bottom at 200 dollars (cause of the core 2 duo from intel). So spend the extra 300 dollar on a decent cpu and mobo and build your system around that. With a 4200 1 gig of ram and any gfx card better than x800 on the ati side or 6800 on the nvidia side and all the new games should be playable on medium settings.
Hope this helped.
some online stores that you should browse
www.newegg.com states
www.ncix.com canada