Help me build my computer please

[woomehoo]

my budget for my custom computer is $550(yea i'm not that rich)
i want a computer that could play HL2, DOOM3 and other new games, also it could do fast encoding( i prefer Pentium4). my friend he builded a good computer(my opinion) at the price of $550 something like 1.5 year ago, so if i build my computer right now i think my computer will be a little bit better than his at $550 because the price for though components went down. His specs is Pentium4 2.4, 512 MB RAM, Nvidia FX5200 128MB, 80GB harddrive, Case W/ 420Watt, Monitor(Not LCD) = $550 something. now he moved so i couldn't ask him to help me. o yeah i forgot, i already bought a video card Nvidia FX 5500 128MB AGP 8x.
Thank You Very Much, I'm Really Appricate Your Help.

 

[Blue]

I think this has not been answered to yet because your asking for alot ;-). It would take much research for myself to find you a system for $550 Canadian that would run those games at a playable level. and I'm not sure on the Nvidia FX 5500 running doom 3 very well although it will run it but at a point where you'd have to turn down all the settings and still most likely get some slow down. I personaly wont play a game this way .

You also mentioned that you preffer a p4 but if it's just a budget of $550. U'r working with then it would make more sense to go for an AMD athlone xp chip if you can get your hands on one. A place where I like to shop cheapest intel chip Celeron-D 320 2.4 GHz 533FSB Retail Box for $120 (not a very good chip) so you see that's a large chunk from your budget of just $550.

Good luck

 

[Blue]

of course trying to build a system as cheap as possible I would purchase a Sempron chip or one of the lowest of the 64 bit chips like the 2800+ for under $200 dollers but I suggested you track down an older chip even still because your just not going to build a system for that price if you have to pay over $100 dollers on the CPU. If you use some of your old hardware such as CD/DVD rom, HD, Memory (if possible) then you may come close but you must realize that your not going to run the new games at a very playable level and you mentioned that you wanted to do "FAST" encoding . Well dont expect to do much fast Unless your definition of the word is far different then mine in PC terms .