EggXpert

Hey there, back again. I'm still not very experienced with building computers.

I want this computer for pretty much everything--gaming, Internet, word processing, making videos, etc.

This time, instead of building one from scratch, I want to upgrade a computer we have. I'm planning to keep some of the parts. I don't know the exact details, but our DVD burner and DVD rom is IDE. My hard drive is EIDE. So, I need a motherboard with 3 IDE connections. I'm also planning to keep the case.

If there's no motherboard with 3 IDE connections, I guess I'll have to sacrifice those items and go from scratch. However, I would really like to keep them to save some money.

So, to conclude, the things I need are: motherboard, CPU, power supply, video card, and RAM. I plan to use 64bit Windows 7 Ultimate on this. I was thinking about going with 4gb RAM and an AMD Phenom II X3 720 like we did last time, but I'm not sure if there's anything better for around the same price now. My budget is $600.

Thanks!

 EDIT: I just checked the prices for DDR2 RAM. they really shot up! Would DDR3 be cheaper and better now?

athlon x4 620+ 4GB RAM+ 790GX mobo, a case, and psu, bam, done

X3 720 is still a good option in that price range, another option would be the Propus chips. 790GX i think is a bit overkill on that budget, something like 780G or 785G is fine. I would go with DDR3 with current prices. I've never used IDE much, but most new boards still have at least one IDE connection (many have 2). Last i remember, you can plug multiple IDE devices together then to a single IDE port on the mobo, one device is the master and others are slaves. But im no expert on IDE, that was a bit before my time :P.

I'd go 790 just for upgrade headroom, oh wait, I did go 790 for that reason lol