Upgrading

[Infamous kontroL]

Hello, this is my first time posting, but I'm not even sure if I'm posting in the right section lol. Just to let you guys know, I've been trying to do my own research for the past three days, and just cant find what I'm looking for, so here I am. First off, here are my current specs (I got most of it off of Berlac Advisor):

Intel P4 3.2 GHz (478)
Asus P4S800D-X Motherboard
1024 of memory (not sure what brand though, just mentioning that cause i read that the brand made a difference, so..)
Radeon 9800xt

If you guys need to know more, just let me know and I'll try to answer it to the best of my knowledge. Now, to my questions. Oh yeah, keep in mind I want to use it mostly for gaming. Should I keep that motherboard? When I bought it, the salesman said this is fine, so I took it. I was (and am) on a budget, as I'm a 20 year old college student. He said its cheap and reliable. Now I'm worried that I should have gotten a better one.Would it make a difference if I get a new one? But then I've reading lots of things about how Athlon is the way to go .. which leads me to my second question .. Should I get new Mobo/Process all together? ..

My second set of questions are about cases and cooling equipment .. When I was putting together my machine, once again I opted for a cheap case from Frys .. that was a mistake .. power supply sucked .. it burned one of little power cords (for lack of a better word). The case is loud , It has like 7 types of fans, I turn it on and it starts to hover lol .. no but its loud .. Now, my roomate is always complaining about the noise .. I researched alternatives, one of which is liquid cooling .. I read that if I'm not overclocking i dont need high-end liquid cooling, and there are some that are under 250 us dollars that work fine .. if so, which ones and what cases should i look at? .. I don't want throw all my questions out at once, so this is enough for now .. Any help would be appreciated .. And thank you guys in advance.

[merlin]

Howdy And Welcome To PCHF,

Well my first question wouldbe what's your budget.. And if you are not going to overclock that much you dont need a water cooling system at all. There are good quite cooling fans out there. Which in turn saves you about 200 buck's. I was an Intel Person untill I bought an AMD FX57. Now I think AMD is the way to go, there cheaper, faster, and just plain better. So lets start at the budget..

[ladygreenwitch]

:lol: Oh, I was hoping you would show up. Been wanting to watch this topic. You are in Great hands Infamous.


TTFN

T

[merlin]

Ahh thank you tj.. even though I dont have a big head, I will have to agree with you here. :-D This is my job and my hobby (buildin pc's) so it's fun helping other try and figure out what is not going to be obsolete tomorrow. But I keep on having troubles getting to the site? Looks like the only one. hmmm maybe I should post a hijack this log lol...

[ladygreenwitch]

:-D LOL

[Infamous kontroL]

First, thank you for your help/reply/welcome .. Well, lets see .. i guess my current budget would be between 400 and 600 hundred us dollars .. should i sell my current mobo/proce, then id have a little extra .. thanks

[Infamous kontroL]

I also wanted to know if i should overclock? .. Merlin, you mentioned that if im not gonna overclock that much .. am i overclockin without knowing? .. And if it would make a huge difference .. thanks again