I want to speed my machine up a bit, it runs OK although I'm not using any top notch gear.
I want to upgrage my RAM first, the question is: Should I get an identical stick of memory to the one I have (512MB 533Mhz Kingston Value Ram) to run in Dual Channel Mode on my Socket AM2 platform? Or get a bigger stick of the same speed (e.g 533Mhz Kingston 1GB and forget about dual channel?
On the processor side, my Sempron runs quite well and now I will wait for the prices of Phenom to drop so I can upgrade to it with a simple bios upgrade. Finally, I'm not a serious gamer whatsoever. But every now and then I like having some fun. The onboard GeForce 6150SE runs Need For Speed Most Wanted only fine, and AOE III fine too, but I want to buy a good PCI-E 16x card to boast my machine's performance in the 80-100 bucks segment. Thanks in advance

For best performance, you really should be running DDR2-800 RAM & you should take advantage of dual channel mode since your board supports it. How about 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2-800 for $28 (after rebate)?

http://shop1.outpost.com/product/51...

This article will help you with your video card choice:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/12...

I'd recommend you to grab 2GB RAM. They're really cheap nowdays, so you can easily strike a pair of Kingston RAM for less than 100 bucks. As for the GPU, I do believe the 8500GT 512MB form Leadtek would be great. It's a fanless GPU.

You beeter add another 50 dollars for a decnet power supply if you are going to upgrade your gpu if you already don't have a decent power supply in your pc.