So...I have 250 bucks (ish) to buy a processor, motherboard, ram, and a hard drive. I'm trying of course to get the most bang for my buck. I have any idea of what I am looking at but I want to hear all of your ideas......
and please respond to the answers in the stickied "Read this First" thread!
Notes:
AMD is best at this budget range / performance (Intel is the outright fastest, and has better price/performance at higher prices)
Look for combo deals, but don't go for:
ECS or JetWay motherboards
You'll find few people who trust them, and perhaps nobody whom swears by them.
RAM prices are a bit wierd, but as a general note:
DDR2 ~ DDR3 in terms of performance.
DDR2 ~ DDR3 in terms of price
however.
DDR2 is gonna die off soon. DDR3 is the new standard.
Since you didn't answer all the questions, I won't bother asking them again.
If you live near a Fry's, they typically have good enough CPU/Combo deals for under $100 -- no, they're not the best boards, but they're good enough for the price you pay (basically, the boards are typically free).
Since we don't know what optical drive, case, and psu you'll be using, make sure the board you buy has IDE, if the optical drive is IDE; make sure the case has adequate cooling for the newer parts; and make sure the PSU is of good quality and can handle the new parts.
Since we don't know if you'll be OC'ing or not: if you will be, get an aftermarket cooler. If not, then a Fry's combo would be fine.
Since we don't know what size monitor, we can't comment on how the onboard vidcard will perform for your needs.
past fry's deals that might come around again, just to give you an idea of what to look out for if you have a Fry's near you:
$130 - AMD Athlon II X4 250 Processor & Asus M3A76-CM Motherboard
$110 - AMD Athlon II X2 550 Black & MSI 785GTM-E45 Motherboard
$100 - Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 & MSI P43 Neo-F Motherboard
$90 - AMD Athlon II X4 250 Processor & Gigabyte GA-M68M-S2 Motherboard
$80 - Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor E6300 & MSI G31M3-F Motherboard
$70 - AMD Athlon II X2 245 Processor & BioStar MCP6P M2+ Motherboard