I'm looking for a new 64-bit machine as my p4 is unstable as hell.
I have about 200-250 for mobo, ram and processor
can anybody recommend a system for me?

oh yeah, and im still gonna use my agp graphics card unless i can find a pci-e card that fits within my budget too.

On that budget, go for an Abit AV8 motherboard with an Athlon 64 3500+ prcoessor and 2x 512MB of paired Corsair Value Select PC3200 RAM. I reckon that'd come out at around ?250.

Yes, I would recommend a simalar spec, that would be aroung ?80 for the mobo, ?50 for the RAM and ?120 for the CPU, which should be coming down in price soon.

You may want to look for a mobo that supports both AGP and PCI-E as I know your current graphics card ain't that good (5200) and having PCI-E on the mobo will allow better upgrades. I have found lots [url=http://www.scan.co.uk/search/search.asp?criteria=AGP+PCI-E&Submit=Go]here[/url], they all appear good (apart from the top one and the wrong CPU ones) and are around ?50. To make sure they have AGP 8x and PCI-E 16x, look fr the ones with 2 different slots that are longer that the PCI ones (stick further into the board). I would recommend [url=http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=291356]this[/url] one as it also has a PCI-E 1x slot (and another slot I cannot recognise).

that slot may be a connection for sata2 but im not sure, thanks for the info

SATA 2 looks like SATA and they are tiny (about the size of a USB port), so that ain't SATA 2. I have SATA 2 on my PC.

Glad to be of assistance.

GET AN APPLE MAC!!! THERE GREat (oops, capslock was on) there sooooooooo, cool, and nice to use

He said he wanted a new PC. Macs aren't PCs (I think that's how people define them). Anyway, I think he wants to play games on it.

yes, i do want this pc to play games, and anyway, if i want a mac, i already have the software to make winxp look like one, and thats good enough for me

SATA2 is a useless technology unless you have about 4 Raptor 150's in RAID 0, only then will you start to experience transfer speeds beyond 150MB/s (and up to 300MB/s). A standard drive like I have (Maxtor Diamondmax +9 200GB SATA1 @ 7200rpm) only has an actual throughput of about 33MB/s, but a theoretical limit of 150MB/s.

I guess it's in the futile quest of "future proffing". Oh, and only Raptor 150s? Why not the Raptor X?

I don't like the Raptor X.

Why not? Isn't it like the ultimate hard drive? Oh, and we're on about pure speed over SATA 2 here.