Hi guys! Another one of these threads, though this one is a little diffrent. i have two computers here.

Intel Celeron D (pentium?) 2.53 ghz (possibly 533fsb?? the standard speed anyway)
DDR 2 - 512MB 667mhz
PCI-e slot
80gb SATA Hard drive

OR

AMD Athlon 2800xp (barton core 2.0 ghz 333fsb)
1.5gb DDR 400mhz
AGP slot
80GB IDE hard drive

the Intel pc wil need a new mobo (cheap one) to get running. But what i want to know is, which one would be best for gaming/LFS and paint shop pro etc?
Is it worth fixing up the intel one or just spending an extra £40 or so on the AMD machine? would like a nice list of pro's and cons. Thanks in advance!

#1.

Yes, number 1 by far - it will also give you upgrade options later down the line with the PCI-E slot It may have less RAM but all the speeds are faster and thats what counts. I wouldn't recommended having many things open (or anything at all) while playing LFS or other games but it should handle it at a decent frame rate anyways.

Yes, sorry for my bad first post.

Initially, get the nicest board you can for Option 1. Reuse the CPU, Ram, PCI-e, etc. Then you can upgrade to the newest stuff out as your budget allows.

yeah i was hoping for in a few months getting the amd 5000 black edition. but as the celeron is a 775 board i may just get one thats dual core compatable and get a good Intel chip when i get the money.
machine #2 has a geforce 5700le
machine#1 is using onboard at the moment. and looks like im loosing the PSU too ill try and work my way round to keeping it but we will see. Thanks guys From what i saw on a website the 2800xp seemed to out-perform the intel celeron every time. but i guess if u take everything else into account itd be faster?

Yer the Athlon is just a bit too old now. Tbf one of my mates still runs my old Athlon 3200+ Barton as his main rig and gets on ok in games, but he'll be building a new rig soon anyway so theres no need to swap the Athlon out.

What I will say is if you can, sell the 2800+ on ebay. You should make a fair bit more than you would imagine. At the time of selling my old bits to my mate, (6 months ago or so) I could have made £50-£60 on the 3200+, that's a lot of money for an old CPU, it seems a lot of people still want them and they're getting pretty rare as it were.

I would be using the slower pc for the family. but i do have an XP 2400 lying about i could sell, but id need a hand with what to pack it in etc sure i can find a few other bits too.