Help with low cost upgrades

[errgin]

Hello.
I put my "current" computer together as a mid/low range machine about 5 years ago. The time has come to improve a few things here and there. I want to upgrade my motherboard, cpu, memory and video card. I would like to stay around $300. I do some casual gaming, mostly rts games.
I've been perusing a few websites and I'm inclined to purchase an athlon 64 3400+, with 512mb ddr 400, a pci-e geforce 6600gt w/256mb. I would like a motherboard with socket 939, a pci-e x16 slot, and a room for some more memory. I have two old hard drives which I'll keep, at least for a while. I also have a sound blaster live card, but I'm curious if I'd be better off with onboard sound, at least temporarily. I also have a linksys 10/100 ethernet card, but again, perhaps an onboard solution would be better?
What do you think? Thank you for the input.

 

[~LoKe]

I would strongly suggest you put off your upgrade for a little longer until you can get $500-$600 dollars to spend on the upgrade. You'll only regret it down the road. At this point, it's a waste of money to get anything but a E6300.

 

[DeChache]

I would wait until you can at least get a dual core into the mix. Single core will be dead in a couple years and since you keep your computers for a long time you are going to want at least a dual core CPU.

Judgeing bye the rest of your system your a pretty causal user so Core 2 is not a must it would be nice but its not a must.

The only people that really need Core 2s are the power users and gamers. Lower Cpus are still worth your money as long as they perform as well as you want them to.

 

[engiNURD]

Too bad you missed all the nice 939 combos that newegg had when they were clearing their 939 stock. I agree... save up a bit more, especially with the holidays comin up.

If you can save up for this, it will last you a LONG time:
$180 - Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz
$100 - Foxconn P9657AA-8KS2H Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express (review)
$100 - WINTEC AMPO 1GB (2x512MB) DDR2-800 3AMD2800-1G1K-R
$110 - BFG Tech BFGR76256GTOCE Geforce 7600GT 256MB ($145 - $30MIR)
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$490 + tax and shipping

If you'd rather not save up for that, go with this:
$95 - Combo: ASUS A8R-MX/SI S939 ATI Radeon Xpress200 mATX + AMD A64 3400+ Venice 2.2GHz s939
$104 - OCZ Premier 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model OCZ4001024PDC-K ($115 - $11MIR)
$110 - BFG Tech BFGR76256GTOCE Geforce 7600GT 256MB ($145 - $30MIR)
$20 - ARCTIC COOLING Silencer64UltraTC
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$329 + tax and shipping (after rebates)

You'll have to be more specific with "around $300" if that doesnt fit your budget.