Current:
Dell Dimension 4700
Pentium 4 3Ghz w/HT
1.5Gb DDR2-400 (running dual channel)
256mb PCIe X800XL
Audigy2 ZS

Thinking about:
Not sure on the motherboard; any suggestions?
Athlon 64 X2 3600+
2Gb G.Skill DDR2-800
256mb PCIe X800XL
Audigy2 ZX

I'd like to o/c a bit, but I'm trying to keep this as inexpensive as possible...so no $200 motherboards. I've seen a few in the $60-80 range..that would be good.

Sooo...suggestions you have, yessss?

You want a number or something?

It'll be 10 faster. I dunno...

Seems like a good upgrade to me. Your old machine is better than mine though, so I'm not sure about the diminishing returns.

No, not a number...but I haven't had a chance to play with any Athlon 64 systems yet...basically, am I going to notice much of a difference?

Found this for a board, but I'm not sure if it's OC-friendly or not..

I doubt it will be much fast unless you're running a 64 bit OS.

creative sucks

Not as bad as your post..

If you find good deals/dying to move to 64-bit, then it's a worthwhile upgrade.

I was helping my housemate look for parts, and from what we've seen, there doesn't seem to be too many good deals going on. You may want to wait.

You can definitely find a motherboard for relatively cheap, I got an MSI K9NU Neo-V for $60 last semester.

X2 3600 for 65 bucks (free copy of R6: Vegas) and 2Gb DDR-800 for 130..seems reasonable to me. I might wait a bit and see what happens with prices..

it's a dual core, so yeah, you'll notice a difference.

Found this MSI board for $50.99 open box at Newegg. Hm.

Edit: Apparently it doesn't have any overclocking options? Pfft..

Hmm.

can't argue with that

I'm dangerously close to springing for this -- $40 off 2Gb G.SKILL DDR2-800 RAM, free 512mb mini-USB drive, x2 3600+ for $65 with a free copy of Rainbow 6: Vegas...

If you play any high end games you might get an noticable return in load times, but don't expect much FPS wise. Maybe 5fps.

EDIT: Doesn't Vegas require a SM3.0 capable card? (I'm too lazy to check)

I'm gonna go out on a ledge and say it's really not worth it.

There'll be improvements, but honestly, not enough to warrant the money or the effort.

You're probably right..I should probably wait and build a c2d setup.

I might build an inexpensive mATX rig for light gaming / etc, though...could do it awfully cheap..

Ehh... not really worth it. Wait and save more.