Well, I do enjoy building so I think I'm going to go that route.

CPU....i am thinking about building the system around this processor. It looks like an good price/performance cpu.

Can anyone recommend a Mobo ~$200, 4 GB of stable ram, and a vid card ~$300?

I do have a copy of XP32bit and 64. I have not messed with the 64bit version for years, would it be able to help performance if go with the 64 install? I read that really anything over 3Gb needs 64bit to be able to use the full amount of memory. is this correct?