[Carbon]

If you're not doing gaming, any cheap graphics card will suffice. A passive 4350 is pretty cheap. Use the rest toward a good SSD or something, that will give you a lot of gains in desktop stuff whereas extra GPU power isn't going to be useful in anything other than games.

An i5 is a little overkill for movies and net browsing too - even lesser processors are way over that system's needed CPU power. Honestly I'd just do a X3 720, MA770-UD3, and a nice SSD :)

[Razer]

Woah, you're thinking of an I7 or other quad based processor to run the internet and low end games? You're wasting your pennies man..

[P5200]

Oh I usually go over kill with every electronic project I build or, modify such as power amps,preamps, ham radio, cb radio and all, PS. home brews. I just like having the extra reserve for all my projects so they can just cruise along without stress and have room for expansion just in case one of my grand children wind up with this build. 35 years worth of electronics but, pc building is a fairly new field to me just want to make sure of no compatibility issues mostly. Thanks!

[P5200]

Originally Posted by Carbon

If you're not doing gaming, any cheap graphics card will suffice. A passive 4350 is pretty cheap. Use the rest toward a good SSD or something, that will give you a lot of gains in desktop stuff whereas extra GPU power isn't going to be useful in anything other than games.

An i5 is a little overkill for movies and net browsing too - even lesser processors are way over that system's needed CPU power. Honestly I'd just do a X3 720, MA770-UD3, and a nice SSD :)

Hi Carbon, hate to ask but what is the SSD you mentioned? Thanks!

[Carbon]

Solid-state drive, there's a nice roundup in the new parts guide. Suffice to say, normally, systems went like this: buy what best core components you can buy (CPU, GPU, RAM, etc), then spend your money on "luxury" parts like modular PSUs, a nice case, etc.

But that's changed...sort of. The core components are of course more important, but if you have any money left over, a SSD is the best upgrade you can do to any system today. Period.

Going from Windows booting in 40 seconds to a minute to four seconds is huge. Being able to open Firefox or Photoshop in a second or two is huge. A X3 720 and 4GB of RAM is overkill for any desktop system as far as core components, and so you might as well pop in a SSD because that's what will really make the thing roll in the usage scenario you've described.

Unfortunately, SSDs tend to be pretty expensive. However, given that you were going with a $200 processor & $100 motherboard you could probably buy an X3 and MA770T-UD3 and 4GB of DDR3 RAM and now have about $100 left over..with the savings from the lower-end graphics card, and even maybe a very slight downgrade to the X2 240, you'd have another $120 or so to work with.

It's up to you, but throwing more processor speed at browsing the web and other low-spec tasks is kind of a waste - most people believed that their computer being 'slow' was not having enough RAM or processor speed but in reality it's due to the hard drive.

With all that said, I would recommend you pop in a 60GB OCZ Agility or 80GB Intel G2 drive in your planned setup and tailor the rest of the system around that.

[P5200]

Thanks for the through explanation and advice. at the time, I am running the x3 phenom 2 720 2.8ghz bumped to 3.4 ghz running at 34 degrees C. on the Asus MA378-EM motherboard while browsing so maybe this will be fine with those parts. I would like to upgrade the outboard Radeon X1650 Graphics card and maybe, try the new windows 7.

[Carbon]

Sounds like a plan then, I'd use what you've got. Throw the SSD in it, do a 4350 or 4550 passive and it should be a lot faster :)

[Razer]

A guy I know who's got some education from Microsoft says that the OCZ Agility are the best out there. Intel's are faster but a lot more expensive and from the OCZ down you're paying too much for not enough performance.

Definitely get rid of that graphics card. I have the AGP version of it in an old computer and it's poor at best. It'll still run Windows 7 though (Which I HIGHLY advise you get) so it's not a "necessary" upgrade.

[P5200]

Originally Posted by Razer

A guy I know who's got some education from Microsoft says that the OCZ Agility are the best out there. Intel's are faster but a lot more expensive and from the OCZ down you're paying too much for not enough performance.

Definitely get rid of that graphics card. I have the AGP version of it in an old computer and it's poor at best. It'll still run Windows 7 though (Which I HIGHLY advise you get) so it's not a "necessary" upgrade.

Oh yeah on the graphics card and do you know I paid $80.00 for that damn thing. I did everything but beat the piss out of the guy who sold it to me at office depot. when I found out what I received for my $80.00 lol! yeah, I still, have mixed feelings about exactly, what I want to build. I know my actual needs are not that elaborate but, I'm like a lot of people when they go to buy a pair of boots, cars, etc cheaper will suit my needs but, the wants seem stronger then the needs plus, I just like the challenges if the projects turn out good lol! Thanks Again!