Upgrading and Repurposing

[MaxMahem]

I built this system about 6months ago for about $500

Athlon 3200 XP
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (nForce4 Chipset)
1GB Ram
Radeon X700 Pro
+ Hardrives, DVD/RW, and other componets I had laying around.

I use this system mainly for work, surfing, DVD ripping, watching videos, and occasionaly games. Due to the limitations of my video-card I play these at rather low-rez and low-settings. Which is find, because I realy play more nethack then I do Battlefield 2.

Well I'm getting a HDTV later this month (B-Day present to myself) but I realy don't have any high-def content to use with it. I don't have (or want) cable or satalite TV and I'm waiting for the PS3 to come out to make a next-gen console decision. So I thought this computer would be ideal to repurpose as a source of high-def content. That is, videos from the net, and upscaled DVDs.

Do you think this system would prove adequate for those tasks? The Radeon X700 has a DVI out (which my HDTV should be able to use) and the motherboard has an optical out to my stereo. I already have a wireless keyboard and mouse to use with it. Any potential hick-ups in mixing these together I should look out for? The only thing I could think of is that I might have to upgrade the video card if I want to keep playing BF2 and what not at HDTV resolutions.

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This of course leaves me lacking a primary system for doing the tasks that one used to perform. I was wondering about what I could look to getting for those same $500 in a new system today. I have (or can scavange) the HD, DVD/RW, Case, Peripherals, ect... for this system. So all I would need would be the processor, motherboard, RAM, and potentialy the video-card. (Which is basicaly what I purchased before).

Currently I'm looking at something along this lines:
Athlon 3800 X2
GeForce 6100/6150 based motherboard
2GB Value Priced Ram

This combination looks like it would give me a system that would out-power my old one (except in terms of graphics), but would be cheap in that I would not have to get a Video Card or Sound Card for it. But it would still potentialy leave me with some room to upgrade later if I choose to. Is this line of reasoning wrong? And any specific hardware I should look out for. Oh, and lastly since this sytem is going in my bedroom, I need it to be as quite as possible as well.

Thanks for any help.

 

[jlbenedict]

are you sure you have a 3200 XP running on an nForce4 chipset??

did you mean an A64, 3200+ cpu??


as for the second question I have.. what is wrong with your MSI Neo4??
It will run your proposed X2 3800 just fine.

 

[MaxMahem]

Ah, sorry my bad. It's a A64, 3200+ no XP (why do they have to make these names so darn confusing). Just a single core.

And there is nothing wrong with my current system and motherboard, (although it's a bit noisy). But since I plan on repurposing it as my HDTV source, I'm going to need something to replace it with. The TV will work GREAT for videos and games, but I think it may leave something to be desired in terms of more general computer tasks.

This new system will be more focused on work and other computational intensive tasks (compiling, rendering, re-encoding DVD's, ect...) so it is making more sense to me right now to keep the more powerful CPU for those tasks. This new rig (the one in my bedroom) will probably not do that much gaming or graphicaly intensive work (though I might watch the odd movie on it, and I do have a surround sound set-up for it). Since I think my old rig will be good enough for pumping out HDTV content, although I might need to upgrade the video card. Am I wrong? Does swapping the the dual core CPU into the old rig make more sense?

 

[GamerExpress]

too much to read....cliffs please.