Looking for advice on an upgrade of a ~ 5 yr old rig I built. I have a self imposed limit of $350 and want to find the best GPU/RAM/Mobo/CPU combo. I am not a major gamer, but want to play two games I just got (Halflife 2 and Bioshock) as gifts at reasonable settings. I am hoping my Antec 430W PSU will suffice but will upgrade that only if absolutely required and not included in the $350 limit.
GPU:
$115 US (all prices are from Newegg and include shipping)
SAPPHIRE 100218L Radeon HD 2600XT 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail
CPU:
$85 US
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Brisbane 2.5GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor Model ADO4800DDBOX - Retail
MOBO:
$85 US
GIGABYTE GA-M61P-S3 AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
RAM:
$65 US
CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail
Going over the $350 limit is not an option, but other combinations within the price limit would be fine. One other dumb question: How big a deal is it if my harddrive isn't SATA? I can get a new one, but it would have to come within the $350 and drive down the specs of my other components. I was hoping to keep my current hard drive for now and upgrade it to SATA in 6-12 months.
Thanks in advance for your help.
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