For the last month or two I've been working at getting new parts to upgrade my desktop computer. After a daunting task of researching the parts I would like to use for the budget I put myself in I finally got all my parts.

This is what I put together:
Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 Processor
Gigabyte GA-Ep45-UD3P Motherboard
4 GB Ram from Mushkin
BFG Nvidia GTS 250 Graphics Card



I didn't have to get anything else since I had the parts already, although I did splurge just slightly on a new case.
Putting the computer together was kind of challenging since my case was a little smaller then I first thought. Fitting all the hard drives, vid card and memory with all the required cables was pretty hard, but I got after a little minipulation.



I also opted to install Windows 7 Pro 64-bit OS to try it out. The install for this was horrendesly slow, but after the install the Win7 is blazing fast. The down side of a 64-bit OS is the lack of 3rd party software support. To help aid with this Microsoft release XP-mode which runs a virtual version of XP.  It is very easy to setup and very easy to use I have used it for a few old games that XP itself barely supported.





Overall my experience with my new compter is a positive one.

I will be appending to this article when I figure some work arounds for some of the non 64-bit supported softwares out there.