i took a look at it and its a good case, but i had to settle for something different i've chossen the thermaltake VA7000BWA Shark Aluminium tower

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-008-TT

it looks like a good case and the user reviews are good too and it should fit a 8800GTX or GTS
So all i need now is a PSU

this may be a slightly repetative topic but i have looked around and still need some advice

i want to get an 8800GTS or an 8600 but my Dell E521 can't support the 8800 as its too big and the 8600 needs more than 380W so i guess a new PSU, board and case is in order

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=405137 the board i'm thinking of getting (a Asus M2N32-SLi Deluxe)

I will also need a new case, heatsink and PSU becuase the Dell case is a BTX
So does anyone have any suggestions for a good ATX case, heatsink and PSU or a better board?

its current specs (i also have a 20inch widescreen flat monitor)

AMD Athlon64 x2 5000+ (2.6GHz)
1024MB RAM
128MB Nvidia Geforce 7300LE
250GB Hard Drive
80GB Hard Drive
CD/DVD drive
Windows Vista Home Premium

£300-£400 (thats roughly $500-$700 i think) thats how much i have to spend at the moment (i can get the video card later if that won't cover it) is it worth it? as i plan to keep this PC for a while and may need a more adaptive board than the strange Dell one for future upgrades (like using SLI or a 8800GTX) plus it can hold 4 more GB's than my current board but i intend on re-using all the other parts like the CPU, RAM etc

Will it work out ok? as i have never done a major overhaul like this before

If you are really concerned about price you can go for the older model of the PS2 as that is a bit cheaper than the slimline PS2 i have seen a new slimline PS2 for £80 and an older model for about £60

Liked the game engine, the guns (my favourite being the Magnum) and G Man

hated the headcrab AI (its just very stupid) the game could be longer the fast/poison zombies they are a real pain in the ass to kill sometimes and the very sudden and too much like Half-Life 1 ending left me a little disappointed (eventhough there's episode 1 which i haven't played)

apart from that i like everything else about the game

Well firstly it's pretty easy to check for any free PCI-e slots just open up your case and look on the motherboard about 99% of computers have at least one free slot on the motherboard. You might want to check if you have AGP or PCI-e normally AGP slots are brown and PCI-e slots are normally black sometimes blue i believe, could be wrong,

PCI-e slot

http://www.viaarena.com/images/articles/pcie%20002.jpg

Secondly its dead easy to install a video card over an onboard card just plug it in when the PC is off but make sure you have taken the plug out too (you will be suprised how many people don't) and have your driver CD ready when windows asks you to install its drivers the whole process should take about 20 minutes at the most

Thirdly if you have an slim tower it shouldn't really cause too much cooling trouble as long as you have space for air to move around the card but you may need a low profile card (one that is slimmer) but i don't know what case you have

if you do need a low profile card then here is a site (US site i don't know much about it though as i'm Brittish so i shop at scan.co.uk for computer parts) you could try looking there but i'm sorry to say your choices could be a bit limited

http://www.directron.com/lowprofile.html

And finally you seem to have a pretty good CPU if its an Athlon64x2 you should be ok with that for now but as for RAM the more the better you can never have too much RAM, my PC can handle up to 4GB and i plan to buy an extra 2GB soon giving me 3GB

if you need help on installing video cards a simple guide is here its for installing an AGP card but the same applies for PCI-e

http://www.waterwheel.com/Guides/how_to/video/video_cards.htm

Oh and good luck and hope this helps, this is the best i can do as i'm not really an expert but i have had some experiance in installing video cards

I also plan to buy a video card soon hoping to get this little card here

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=575217