What upgrades does my PC need?

[BigLar81]

I bought a Medion PC (M3 Composer 5100) from Bestbuy over a year ago, the specs looked alright to me from what i knew. It's performance for gaming (WoW & Dawn of War) isnt quite what I want so I'm trying to figure out what are the most important upgrades. Here are the computers current specs:

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 530 (3.00GHz) /w HT
1mb L2 cache
800Mhz FSB

Motherboard: MSI MS-7046
Northbridge Intel i915P/i915G rev. B1
Southbridge Intel 82801FB (ICH6) rev. 03

Graphics Card: 128 MBNVIDIA Geforce FX 5300 PCIe
Hard Drive: 160 GB SATA 7200rpm hard drive by Seagate
Memory: Samsung DDR-SDRAM PC3200 - (256mb x 2)
PSU: Fortron FSP350-60UMDN [+3.3V=28.0A, +5v=30.0A, +12v=19.5A]

My plans so far are to get a new video card and two 512mb sticks of memory in the next few days. I figure the videocard is the most important thing that needs an upgrade first. I don't really know much about motherboards... is what I have good enough? Also is the PSU i have okay?

For my video card i was thinking of going with either the XFX 6800GS for a little over $200 or a XFX 7800GT for about $275 after rebate. Does this sound good or with my system am I better off just getting a 6600GT for $110ish?

The memory would probably be this Corsair ValueSelect 1GB Kit. I shouldnt have any problems running that with the other 512mb in dual channel since I have 4 memory slots right?

I looked at some PSUs, if it looks like I need a new one would any of these be a good option? Antec SP-350 350W, COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power 400W or is there some other option that isnt too much?

As for the motherboard I have no idea about that, if I need an upgrade there what options would be good?

I'm kinda new to this and I've just been doing some research on how I can fix up my computer, so let me know if there's something I may have missed. Thanks for the help.

[bassman]

I agree with you; by order of priority I'd upgrade the graphics card and add another 512MB of RAM. The 6800GS offers a great price/performance ratio, so it's a fine option.

[Midknyte]

the 6800GS should be more than enough for your 3GHz cpu.

you should be fine with another 2x512MB of ram.

[bblqj78]

you definitely need at least 1Gb of RAM for gaming these days...and the 6800GS should be sufficient for decent gaming performnace. If you want a bit more and something to make more future proof...get the 7800GT. I upgraded last week from 1Gb to 2 Gb of RAM and got myself a 7800GT to replace my 6800Ultra...and man my system plays everything smoothly. Even FEAR (the most demanding of games) plays at 1280x1024 high settings with AA and AF...i'm very impressed with what I bought!

[pandaz3]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817104953

This would be a better PSU choice, I think you will need the power for the extra ram and better video card. Fortron is a good name in PSU's.

Sparkle, Tagan, Fortron, Silverstone, Seasonic, Enermax, PCPower & Cooling are decent brand names. I have 4 Antec's, but no longer recommend them based on other peoples troubles. I have not heard of a Antec failure that damaged other components though, they do comply with the rules and only self-distruct. And Antec has good support, so I'm not concerned about mine.

This Fortron has two +12V rails and is a modern design, it has a 24 pin convertable to 20 pin connector, looks hard to beat for the money.