Need to rebuild/replace my systems, any suggestions?

[Zyonin]

Greetings fellow WoWI forum dwellers! Currently I am on a long term hiatus from WoW due in part to one part finances (can't afford a Coca-Cola let alone a Game Card) and the other part is my system can't handle WoW anymore.

A quick explanation on part 2:

My GFX card drivers started going south leading to unusual GFX artifacts on my screen. Now granted my monitor is extremely old (bought in 2002 and used everyday since). I did some troubleshooting and tracked down the issue to a GFX card issue. However that drive issue was just one major symptom in my Windows installation's death spiral (mouse drivers went south, optical drive access disappeared, other problems cropped up). The installation had chugged on for two years however it was time to wipe and reinstall.

Unfortunately, my daughter trashed my Windows XP CD some months before and my backup XP disc uses DR-DOS to boot with. My particular Windows install disc does not like executing from DR-DOS's prompt, barfing up error message. My PC is a homebuilt machine so my Windows serial number is tied to my media and my PC is too old to run Windows 7 (AMD 64 3000+, ASUS ATI 9600SE, 1GB RAM). So I turned to Linux to get my PC up and running. I have installed Ubuntu 9.04 and thus at works great except for one "minor" issue, my GFX card. The ATI 9xxx series of cards uses the R300 GPU family. Under Linux, there are no drivers for the R300 GPU that as any decent 3d support. In other words, forget WoW under WINE or any other 3d game.

Thus it's time to start research into replacing or upgrading this machine. I have not been able to much to pay attention to what is good and what is not as far as hardware is concerned. I am looking to build an "affordable" PC that can play games like WoW WotLK. Plus I would like enough power to play future games like Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, WoW Cataclysm, and Guild Wars 2 with a decent framerate and not dialing too many of the effects back. I don't play First Person Shooters, my gaming is in the RTS/RPG/MMORPG genres.

Here is what I am looking for:

- Mainboard (I have excellent results with ASUS boards)
- GFX Card (I don't care about arcane stats and such, I just want my games to look good and run smoothly)
- CPU (likely a good dual core chip)
- Power supply (my current will not crank out the watts for newer stuff as it was built for 2004 era hardware)
- Hard drive (something solid but not flashy)

I am likely going to have buy the parts one at a time and then assemble once I finally get everything together. I generally prefer to build my own machines as most pre-built retail boxes come with too much crap on them that I will never use. I am a gamer however I don't need flash, bells and such. I just need a dependable gaming rig.

[Yhor]

Here's my suggestion for low-mid budget. Asus mboard, 3.0 ghz quad core, 4gig RAM, 650 w PS, and a decent video card. For hard drives, I've always had good luck with WD (non China versions). My choices would be as in the link.

http://secure.newegg.com/Shopping/Sh...px?Submit=view


Not sure if you can view from your location, I'll link singles if so (not logged in for shopping cart, should be able to view).