Building a PC. Advice Needed.

So, I compiled a list of what looked reasonable.

Not sure if everything is compatible or not.
I'm $100 short right now, but looking to find a way to get some more money. So, please don't recommend $300-$400 CPUs.

I'm just building this to have another PC in addition to this one. I'm not going to do hardcore gaming or anything. Maybe once in a while. I'm sure this could handle games like GTA or Sims. I'm also going to be using Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, and hopefully 3DSMax. This can handle it, right?

Also, I'm not sure if the mobo I picked is good. It has everything I want. Onboard video (for now), audio, 4 Ram slots (don't know if DDR2 is better or something). I also need to know if it's compatible with the cpu I picked. The cpu I picked has 533MHz FSB but this mobo says 1066/800MHz.

Anyway, here's the list.

Intel Pentium D 805 - 130.49
http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116001

Aeneon by Infineon 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM - 73.31
http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820121020

Gigabyte GA-8I945GMF Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - 103.35
http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128303

Western Digital 160GB WD1600JDRTL Serial ATA (SATA/150) 8MB - 58.09
http//shop3.outpost.com/product/3868547

The HD looks like a really sweet deal. Is it good? Is it compatible with my mobo and cpu choices?

I already got a case, 450w PSU, DVD-Rom, floppy drive, and a crappy mobo and cpu at a yard sale for $40. I can live without a high-end graphics card and DVD burner for a while until I can earn more money.

Anyway, sorry for so many questions but thanks for any help.

Your links are borked up.

That's a 945 mobo so the SATA drive should be supported natively (no OS drivers needed).

Have you looked at Athlon64? At least until Conroe comes out, Intel can't touch AMD's performance for the price. I've been an AMD fanboy for many years now, however I may build a Conroe in my next system if AMD doesn't respond in-kind by the time I'm ready. I just built this new rig so it'll be awhile though.

Ok, fixed the links.

I have looked at the AMD cpu's but I can't seem to find something that matches that cpu in price and is better.

$130 is an excellent price for a dual-core CPU. It still doesn't perform nearly as well as as the lowest-end dual-core AMD, but costs less than half. If you're NOT interested in heavy duty gaming, I think you'll be plenty satisfied with the D805. However if you do like to play the latest PC games, then for about $300 you'll be much happier with AMD.

Well, do you think it would be a huge improvement from a 1.9 GHz P4 with 1GB ram?

[quote123470f58f="Psyc"]Well, do you think it would be a huge improvement from a 1.9 GHz P4 with 1GB ram?[/quote123470f58f]

as he said, it depends on what you do with it. if you play games like bf2, then upgrading the cpu will be smart but adding more memory will probably help more. everythign else looks great, i'm thinking you rpobably won't game with it since you didn't list a video card lol

Well, considering I'm low on cash, I'm probably going to hold off on the gaming.

I already explained why I'm not getting a card in my OP. )

AMD is still cheaper than Intel, and the benchmarks are generally better. Make sure not to confuse the gHz with the speed between the two. IE an Athlon 64 2.0 gHz runs faster than a Pentium 4 3.2 gHz.

See, that's what confuses me.

Why are there dual-cores that have lower gHz's than single-cores?
Which AMD CPU would I able to buy in that price range?

You won't get a dual core AMD in the price range of a D805. However AMD's will blow the D805's doors off. Bottom end AMD dual-core will set you back $300, however it's much much faster. You can buy an AMD single-core that will perform as well or better than that D805 for single tasks that aren't optimized for dual core/dual proc, and pay about the same, but you won't have dual cores. Dual cores don't really help much unless you multi-task a lot of CPU intensive applications, or play one of the rare games that make use of it. However as dual-core becomes more commonplace, expect more and more applications to take advantage of it, at which point dual-core performance will take off and leave single-core's behind.

You can't really pay attention to CPU frequencies anymore. Ghz is meaningless when comparing different CPU architectures, which is why AMD stopped rating CPU's on frequency years ago, and Intel just recently stopped as well. CPU performance is dictated by many factors other than frequency more pipelines for processing more instructions per clock cycle, on-board memory controllers like on the AMD, larger and faster L1 & L2 caches, faster front side bus (FSB) speeds, etc.