Considering Major Upgrade on Budget, go or no?

[TigerVX]

My computer is becoming old and grumpy, thus its time for a major overhall. I'm at a bugdet of $350, and I currently have 768 ram which I will upgrade later, but for right now I'm considering buying.
ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 Socket 939 ULi M1695 ATX AMD Motherboard $70
AMD Athlon 3000 $120
Radeon X1600pro 256mb PCI-E $120
Lite-On Beige DVD-Drive $20 (Never had a DVD drive =x)
The remaining 30 will probably go to shipping and maybe a new mouse. So what do you experts out there think, would this be a good rig on a bugdet? Also I'm keeping my current HD from my other computer since it holds 120 GB, will I need to reinstall Windows XP with the new motherboard, and will using my old HD have an effects I should know of? Thanks.

[OTZ]

For under $400 you've chosen good parts. Is the DVD drive a RW or just a ROM?

And yes, you will have to reinstall Windows.

[Proximus]

I would suggest you spend 15$ more and get yourself a DVD burner, any of these will do, link .
And apart from Reinstalling Windows having your old HDD will have no side effects.
Also unless you really need that AGP port I would suggest another mainboard, that one is known to be quite buggy. For the same price I would suggest this one.

[Incinerate_IV]

For graphics card you can get something better than the X1600 Pro for less money, look at this post:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...7&postcount=14

BTW I have a DVD burner and I only used it once, the DVD-RWs are just wayyy too expensive. I rather just get a stack of 100 CD-Rs than to get 5 DVD disks. Also it takes a LONG time to burn a DVD, but currently CD burning are pretty fast, especially CD-Rs.

[krazykarl]

DVD-R's are the same price or cheaper if you buy them on spindles. (at least around here 100 pack of DVD-R's go anywhere from $30-$50can depending on the brand.)

[TigerVX]

Hm that X800 does seem to be very tempting... But its in the refurbished section, is it has anyone bought from that newegg section, and what are your opinions on it? Also I'm not sure how much shipping is, so I want to settle for the 30 safety money. I don't really need a DVD burner, and I could always buy one later down the line if I do. I also need a new mouse, since the one I'm using on my laptop is travel size =x. Thanks for the all the feedback, extremely helpful!

[Lee1026]

You are buying a S939 mobo and a s754 CPU?

[TigerVX]

You are buying a S939 mobo and a s754 CPU?

Well according to the motherboard stats it says it is compatible with that processor slot, so I just assumed it'd work. Although I'm wondering if I should just go for the suggested change as I have no real use for AGP as PCI-E is increasingly overcoming it. I'm still wondering a bit with the refurbished section on newegg, anyone have experience with it?

[Lee1026]

It is not compatible. Trust me on this.

[TigerVX]

I see where you're going at now (Not computer savy) Darn... Can anyone suggest a good motherboard with a 754 slot? I can't afford to get the 939 version of the processor =/

[Incinerate_IV]

Shipping on the video card is only $1. I buy new stuff from newegg all the time, and have no problems with it, so I doubt if their refurbished item service is going to be any less quality.

As for the motherboards I would just get the cheapest one you can find, motherboards make no inpact on performance. Just get the cheapest one with all the features you want and you should be happy with it.