Need Hardware suggestions pls

[mgoldy77]

I'm WAY outa the loop these days as too what is good and what isn't, and what prices are good and what aren't.

That being said, I have a tower case, fans, nice hard drive, and a nice DVD drive that have been collecting dust for 5 years with a 500 watt power supply waiting to be finished.

I'd like to know what is the best CPU, Motherboard, GCU, and about 4 gigs of ram combo that I can get for this setup keeping in mind that I have about 300 to 400 dollars to spend on all 4 components.

Any suggestions would be HUGELY appreciated.  I've tried to troll through information to get up to speed again but I'm soooo far behind what is going on in the computer component world atm, that I just figure I'll ask for suggestions from those who know.

[Geek-9pm]

On a limited budget, the first question is about the OS.
Getting the a 64 bit and 32 bit system can take a lot of your money.
If you are not going 64 bit, not much point in going with 4 GB.
And if your favorite programs are only 32 bit, there is not much advantage to getting a 64 bit CPU. Unless you someday are going to be rich again.

[mgoldy77]

See, I'm already a little lost.  Just a little though, the real thing I don't know is how to know if you need or use a 64 bit system.

My laptop that I'm using now using Vista and I believe is a 64 bit system.  My other laptop that my wife uses is XP and I am positive it is a 32 bit.

The thing I do most on my computers is play World of Warcraft, and I'm pretty sure it's designed for 32 bit.  I do NOT know however if playing it or other games like it using a 64 bit system is better.  That's why I don't understand the need for the difference.

That all being said, ALL my computers lately have slowed WAY down, and I suspect it's from Windows updates.  I've cleaned fans, use cooling pads, cleared cache, even reinstalled OS's and still after all the updates it's like the computers just old and lost it's mind.