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My old system:
Asus P4T533-c
P4 2.4 Ghz 533 FSB
Samsung 512 mb RAMBUS 1020 @ 1200 Mhz
Geforce 4 Ti 4200 64 mb
WD 120 gb, 8mb cache
IBM 60 gb. 2mb cache
Nec ND-1300A
Luna card + 8 channel I/O-box running SFP 3.1c in Windows Xp

On the new computer I will keep:
Luna card + 8 channel I/O-box running SFP 3.1c in Windows Xp
WD 120 gb, 8mb cache
Nec ND-1300A

As my computer is not meant as a pure DAW I want better perfomance in both games and audio programs. I am not sure about the perfomance of ram nowadays but I assume that there now is cheap DDR memory that can at least match the perfomance of my rambus memory. I also assume that I dont need to pay much for a cpu that will outperform my old one. Are my assumptions correct?

Should I buy a AMD or a P4? I will probably play more games than music on my computer. What mobos and chipsets do u recommend? What processors? What ram? Most important is the value for money!

Hoi Synaesthetic,

I have a similar PC setup. IMHO, adding another 512MB of memory can make a nice boost for now. PC hardware wise, I personally would at least wait a month or 3-4, before investing in a whole new mobo/cpu/ram setup.

at0m.

Thanks for your answer. The problem is that I have a buyer in this very moment that won't be interested for more than a couple of weeks. And I also really need a computer that supports bigger disks than 120 gig. Buying more ram is maybe a solution but I still need to pay a big load of money for just 512 mb more.
Can't you in every moment say that it is a good thing to wait a couple of months before buying a new computer? And when you have waited a couple of months some new technology has arrived but as you can't afford it you wait a couple of months more...
What is coming the next months that makes it a bad decision to buy a new computer today? The follow up of P4?

BTX boards. I wait for them ...

dual-core athlons64 are coming in about a month , also intel too is going to release dual-core p4 with some 64-bit support(but not full).

currently i'm in big doubt of upgrading to asus p5ade-premium+etc, at least i managed to decide not no update my current setup (p4 1.8@2.0+512 rimm), cause it will be just a waste of money - cost of 256mb rambus is about 1gig of ddr