Im looking to significantly (hopefully) upgrade my current Desktop PC, primarily for gaming, although after doing a bit of research, all I now understand is that the more that I know, the more I realise I don't know.

To be honest I'm not even sure what exactly I'm being limited by, but either way, I have about £600 to spend, so I'm looking to upgrade as best I can.

After scouting around a bit, I think I have some sort of idea of some decent components, but I'm fairly paranoid about compatibility, so I figured I post my ideas here and let you guys rip them up and give me better ones.

Anyway heres my current crappy build, with possible replacements:

Processor: AMD Athlon XP, 1917Mhz (11.5 x 167) 2600+
possible replacement: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) (£141)

Motherboard: Biostar M7NCD (real clock 167Mhz (DDR))
possible replacement: I genuinely have no idea. I would probably hazard a guess at the Asus P5W DH Deluxe WiFi (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard. (£129)

RAM: 2 x 512MB - not sure what brand, but its pretty crappy.
possible replacement: Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Kit (£129)

Graphics Card: nVIDIA GeForce 6600 LE AGP
possible replacement: I know I need a better one, but I'm trying to figure out a way to get the 8800 GTX and I'll post what I've been reduced to as soon as I ponder on it.

I'm currently using a 300W Power Supply, not sure if this will be good enough for the upgrade, and want some more HD space, but my current drive is a 120G 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/100, but I'm not sure about the whole SATA - Ultra-ATA compatability issue.

Anyway thanks for taking the time to go thorugh it (if you get this far), all help greatly appreciated, and if you need any more info, just let me know. Cheers.

Go with a E6420 and save some money. DDR 1066 isn't necessary, you can easily get away with DDR800. You definatly want to get a DX10 video card, if you can't afford a 8800GTX get the 8800GTS. Most motherboards only have 1 IDE slot, so you can only connect two IDE devices. You should probably keep your optical drive(s) if any good and buy new SATA2 HDD's.

300W power supply is not even close to enough, you should be looking at good quality 550-600W PSU's.

if your not going to overclock then go with intel motherboard. 965 chipset

Thanks for the advice. I'm now thinking about something like this:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.13GHz (1066FSB) - Retail - £120

Asus P5B Deluxe WIFI Socket 775 Core 2 Duo P965 FSB1066 DDR2 SATA Audio ATX - £117

Ebuyer 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz PC2-6400 240pin Extra Value Ram - £101

BFG 8800GTX OC version 768MB 2xDVI GDDR3 PCI-E - £362
or
EVGA 8800 GTS SuperClocked 640MB GDDR3 PCI-E -£269

Coolermaster IGreen 600W PSU - 85% Efficiency 8pin ATX12V v2.2 120mm Fan - £63

Western Digital WD2500KS 250GB 7200RPM SATAII/300 16MB Cache Hard Drive - OEM - £44

Overall Price- £714 - £807

I plan to overclock, and I've read the CPU/mobo combo goes well together. Any thoughts on the new setup? I know it breaks my initial budget, but, well...I don't care.

Thanks.

I don't like your choice of no-name RAM, I've never found cheap RAM is very good. Try to find a good name on sale, check out the OCZ Platinum, much better, and even cheaper. DDR800 is good with a E6420, you should be able to hit 3.2Ghz with a 1:1 ratio without overclocking your RAM. You will need an aftermarket heatsink/fan for that CPU if you are going to overclock, and a good one, check out the Scythe Ninja, it's very effective and quiet.

Overall it looks much better, a nice system.