Upgrading Questions

[FireFox]

This is what I currently have:

GA-8IDX Intel Pentium 4 ~ 1.6 @ 2.16 gHz
Leadtek GeForce 4 Ti4200 @ 285/585
256MB PC133
Maxtor 80gig HDD @ 7200 RPM ATA133
SB Live Value

This is what I'm looking to replace it with: Origanally

Leadtek® nVidia GeForce PX6600GT PCI-Express
MSI Intel 915P Combo-FR
Intel® Box Pentium-4 3.0GHz Processor (Socket LGA775) 1024K OD 800MHz FSB 90nm Technology Hyper-Threading
2x 512Mb Alpica 184pin PC3200 400MHz DDR DIMM
WESTERN DIGITAL, 120GB, S-ATA, 3.5", 9.5MS, 7,200RPM, 8MB CACHE

This amounts to about R 7 150,00 (US$ 1 200,00) that is the max of my budget.

Things I'd like to know are;

1) Is this a good combo?
2) Any known issue that I should take note of (been out of Tech loop for a while)?
3) Is there a big difference between using DDR II and DDR I (can only afford DDR I right now)
4) What is the big difference between the 6600, 6600 Turbo, 6600GT and 6600GT Turbo except the price?
5) Which is the beter option Gigabyte / Leadtek, the two brand choices I've got for the GFX?
6) Any alternative suggestions I could or should look into that will fall in abovementioned budget?

Game & Graphics type I'm looking to "max out" on are Doom 3, NFSU2, X2 and so forth. Ti4200 able to manage playability at a big eye candy sacrifice.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT:

After a bit of reading up and getting up to date with whats what I've decided that I should maybe rather go this way:

Midi ATX 300W Case I'm just a bit concerned with the watts of the power supply (Model - CX-5959-BLW)
MSI K8N Neo 4 Platinum/SLI
AMD® Athlon� 64 3000+ SOCKET 939
2x 256 Mb Alpica DDR the CL 3 (How much will I loose out going only with 512mb in total?)
80gig WD SATA HDD
Leadtek® nVidia GeForce PX6600GT PCI-Express

So any thing else I should take note of or consider as this still fall just about in my bugdet?

I was planning on using my old SB live in the new PC but it would seem that the onboard sound of the new M/B will be superior to that of the old SB Live. Is this correct and advisible to rather use the onboard sound?

Thanks

[suicide eddie]

the cards are a good choice and perform the same within a few fps and go for a 6600gt which should have faster memory ddr2 or 3 and about 10/15 fps faster than a 6600. you will have to spend more for your psu to get something with more grunt to power all your hungry devices otherwise something will go bang very quickly. i bet the one supplied with the case costs less than a tenner, heres a few to look at http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20050228/index.html. the bluestorm is what i,ll buy.
i dont know about that brand of memory but it looks like just a generic label, use a brand such as kingston or crucial with for better performance and quality with a lifetime warranty and a lower cl rating of 2.5 or 2.0. you may need to think about the size of the drive if your going to store dvds and games on it. with games and movies being about 2.5-4.5 gig each it,ll soon fill up.
quality of sound seems to vary from board to board
and the app its being used for. try both the onboard and the card to see what is the best sound for you.

[FireFox]

Ok I can get a MSI 6600GT for less than the leadtek and can then get a WD 120gig SATA HDD and 2x 512mb DDR400 Ram. That will amount to about the same as what I would have spent.

Any thoughts on the MSI 6600GT preformance wise? Can't find anything that shows that it would be slower than the other cards.

In regards to the PSU I don't know what type of PSU they use in that case but from the pricelist I have I could maybe look at replacing it with a AOpen® 400Watt 24-pin ATX 12V (Rev 2.01). I don't know which one of those PSU it would be as the product code doesn't resemble anything there (ATX-Z400). I also don't know if this supplier deals with other brands (propibly) but it ain't listed in the pricelist tho. So that is what I'm going on right now till I can contact them maybe.

And how much of difference will there be if I only go with 512MB DDR in total and not a gig (might have to drop down to 512mb to afort a higher watt PSU) as I can alway just add 2x 256mb DDR400 later to make a gig or should I try and dish it all out first time - damn budget.

Thanks

[Krom]

Windows XP runs night and day different with 1 GB of RAM vs 512 MB.

[Mobius]

What Krom said.

But if budget is your problem, why not go Socket 754 and an AMD64 core? That'll still destroy the equivalent price/box in an Intel system...

[Mr. Perfect]

Any idea if you could sell the old system to someone? Even if you only got a few hundred for it, it would easily cover a high end PSU and the gig of ram.

[FireFox]

Ok finally got my goods today to only be disappointed in the total lack of compitance of the salesrep/company.

Firstly I order a 6600GT PCI-e, I get a damn AGP 8x version (nitwits).

Secondly I asked them to check that the PSU that is shipped with the Case is compatible with the motherboard and he replied to me that it was. Open up Motherboard read the guides - recommend 450w and must be 24 pin. Check the case PSU seeing the order is already F&%êd up and what do we have a 20pin PSU.

Thirdly I asked them to assemble the system and you guessed it it weren't even assembled.

The only thing I did score was the CPU instead of a 3000+ they gave me a 3200+ at no extra cost.

So Monday morning first thing somebody is going too have very bad day as I'm going to claim my PCI-e card and a PSU that wil run this system on their costs as they said that this system wil work. So now I want a working system for the quoted price which I already paid them.

[Testiculese]

Haha, screw the Man! Or in this case, the Corporate Man.