here's my PC

ASUS P4PE-X
2.4g CPU
1Gig ram (1x512-2700, 1x512-3200)
BENQ DVD DUAL DW1610 DVD-RW
LG DVDRAM GSA-4163B DVD-RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT (yes i know my board is only 4x agp)
SBLive 2.0+ (yes i know it's really old and sucky)
Windows XP Home SP2 (upgrade version from 98se)
Samsung 931B monitor LCD

2 HD, a 160g(2x75g) and a 40g giving me 3 drives in the pc.

Now what i would like is to play COD4 easily.
If i upgrade the board do i have to reformat?
Plus i would like to even out the ram maybe going 2 gigs of the same stuff

I did a build here but don't know much about the parts.

MysteryByte Computers
System Quote
Thursday Dec 27, 2007

Part # Product Description Price
13323 INTEL Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0GHz FSB1333MHz 4MB LGA775 Dual-Core $298.00
13378 GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L Core 2 Quad/ P35/ 4xDDR2-1066/ GbE//4SATA/1PCIe16X/HD_Audio (2YR MFG 1YR MB) $122.00
13283 Super*Talent 1GB DDR2-800 / PC2-6400 / CL5 / (MFG Lifetime (MB 1st yr Hot Swap) $32.00
13283 Super*Talent 1GB DDR2-800 / PC2-6400 / CL5 / (MFG Lifetime (MB 1st yr Hot Swap) $32.00
13675 BFG 8800GT OC 512MB DDR3 (Core 650/Mem 1.8GHz)2DVI/HDTV PCI-E (MFG Lifetime) $294.00
12607 Seagate ST3160811AS 160GB Barracuda 7200.10 SATA-II 8 MB (5YR MFG - 1YR MB) 1st yr Hot Swap $63.00
12983 LITEON 20A1S-12 20X20 DVDRW (SATA) Retail (Black w/ Beige Bezel incl.) (1YR MB) $38.00
11569 *APEVIA (BK/BL) X-PLORER W/WIN *NO PS* $71.00
12953 Coolermaster eXTREME POWER 650W (RP-650-PCAR) SLI 2x6pin PCIe 24/20PIN (2YR MFG)(1YR MB) $88.00
8839 MITSUMI FA404 (Black) 3.5" Floppy / CARD READER 7-IN-1 Internal USB $31.00
12769 Sound Blaster X-Fi XTREME AUDIO (RETAIL) $68.00
13341 ACER AL2016WBSD 20" WIDE LCD SIL/BK 1680X1050 800:1 5MS 300CD/M2 DUAL 160'/160' (Acer 3YR) (1YR MB) $239.00
1089 Built-In 10/100 Network Card $0.00
7188 MS Windows XP Home SP2 w/ 1 user License, CD & Manual $103.00
1439 Yes Windows is being purchased with my PC (Build, Fully Test & Install O/S, drivers & updates) $0.00
185 1 Year Parts & Labour System Warranty $0.00

All Prices are listed in Canadian Dollars.
Applicable shipping charges are not included.
Taxes have been calculated for: Nova Scotia SubTotal 1479.00
HST 207.06
Total $1686.06

And you'll save 1% on everything

you shouldn't have to reformat, but a new install of XP (eep Home upgrade) would be required. I have no idea how that install would go, seeing as I'm a Pro- (Corp)-lifer.

What's the difference? In the end he's going to have to wipe his drive. Well, I guess it *could* but done without, but hardly worth the hassle.

Anyway, I'd say buy new, but that's just me.

I'd say buy new as well, and that's a pretty decent build you've got going.

My only suggestion would be to drop the Xtreme audio and use the onboard. That card isn't worth it as it does all of the work via software.

With the money you'd save on that, I'd bump up the supertalent mem to the CAS4 stuff they've got on for around $80.

You might also want to consider a quad core 6600 if you don't mind overclocking it. (Either way throw in at least an AC freezer7 Pro or better for CPU cooling).

Overclocking scares the crap out of me, where do i select cpu cooling or pc cooling?

It's probably not included in the standard "build a PC" form for the site. I'm sure if you gave them a call or dropped an e-mail they'd be happy to set you up with some aftermarket cooling.

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of overclocking either anymore. I just found a job that pays more money so I could actually buy a faster CPU instead.

Definitely time for a completely new system

Go E6750, OC, save coin (it's uber easy with C2D's, nothing to fear - 600MHZ, no problem) Though really, the Q6600 is cheaper than the 6850, and newer games do utilize the cores
Get a bigger drive, you'll need it before long
I'd avoid LiteOn drives, people swear they're the bees knees, but every one I've had was a peice of CRAP. Pioneer 212D FTW
Xfi X Audio - don't bother, onboard is probably better, you need an X Music or X Gamer for hardware sound
Floppy, not gonna need it, unless you have a use 7in1 card reader.
Coolermaster PSU, um, er

On the OC front.... those giga P35 boards are amazingly easy to OC (I'm running the higher end DQ6). So easy in fact that I was a bit disapointed that I didn't need to do more work to get the max OC....

The memory settings scale automatically with your OC (a bit too much for best performance, but bang on for guaranteed stability) so the process is really simple.

C2Ds can easily hit 30%+ OCs without requiring any voltage bumps at all so you're really wasting valuable CPU potential if you don't bump them up a little bit........