I just want to add my agreement and emphasis to this advice. I bought a decent "starter model" desktop PC almost 10 years ago and have slowly upgraded individual components as I either needed or wanted to. I never once spent more than $100 on any individual upgrade and usually kept it under $50 (I never buy this year's model, always get the best I can of last year's model). It has always performed well enough to play most new games right up until the last year or two and it took less money over the course of the ten years to keep it that way than it cost me to buy the original PC in the first place. Unfortunately, it has finally hit an upgrade roadblock (can't upgrade anything else without replacing the mobo, can't replace the mobo without also replacing the RAM, video card, processor, etc.), so I will very soon have to buy a new starter machine for my next decade of budget upgrades... though this time I might try to cut it off after 8 years.

Thanks.

Yes, I forgot to mention it can be efficient in certain situations to start off with a good base and slowly add/upgrade components over time. Even if you buy a lot of great stuff at once, there's usually room for an upgrade or two down the line if that's what you're after.

I don't recommend going 10 years with the same motherboard, certainly, but it is possible.. 8/10 years is impressive, though, sir, and I commend you.

About the latest vs. older stuff, there are times it's best to get the newer stuff, though, if you can afford it. Spending $300 on a piece of hardware may last you four years, for example, vs. a $200 piece that will last you two. At the same time, yeah, sometimes the latest is just silly and meant for people that need the absolute best and don't care about the cost.

Oh, I didn't keep the same mobo. The original machine had a mobo with an AGP 4X slot and the first major upgrade I did was replace that with a AGP 8X model. At the time I had the option to go with a transitional AGP/PCIe mobo, but I stupidly didn't take it, which has led to my current upgrade brick wall.

Seriously, $5 is INSANE for The Witcher. Buy it!

You were probably better off not using a transitional board. I had an ASRock board with AGP/PCi-e slots and both were gimped with the PCi-e limited to 8x to give the AGP slot 8 lanes. Looking back on it it was a totally pointless purchase. You would be better off simply buying the parts and waiting to upgrade Mobo/CPU/Ram and card at the same time.

They did at one time, but is was PCIe 1.0, which is kind of crappy in comparison to the current PCIe spec.
You might be right, but I look at it like this: if I had bought that mobo, even if it sucked for a while, I would have been able to continue upgrading other parts and later own been able to justify another mobo purchase with "real" PCIe capability without having to re-buy my video card, RAM, etc.

Possibly but I look back on the whole endeavor as a waste of money myself. Sometimes to save money in the long term you have to take that leap to the next tech level. The PCi-e card was limited by the board and the CPU was limited to stock speeds as the components were very poor quality. When I finally ponied up the money to a proper ASUS PCi-e board I was at last getting the performance I initially paid for.

A lot of AMD hardware is backward compatable it's one of the desirable reasons to use them. This however does come at the cost of performance which Intel have dominated ever since the Core2Duo and Quad. Hell my overclocked Q6600 will still run rings around most AMD based machines.

Mobo's are one of the few areas where you should always buy the most expensive you can afford. The other component IMO is the power supply. A good Mobo and PSU will last you years.

150 would be about the right budget for a good Mobo. Of course you can go much higher but you will only see the benefits there if you are going to overclock. Oooh lookey! Nice.

So buy to build in the future? Buy components as you can afford them and work towards a future build. The end result will be worth it and it will save money in the long run.

try evil islands.. the world blends in well with creatures, graphics, music, magic spells and etc..
it has strong character creation( when you level up ) also the quests are very cool.

Which is why the best thing to do is stick your cash away in a savings account and just wait. When you have about $600 you can go out and buy the stuff you need in one go. Case, Mobo, Ram and PSU. Everything else is fluid, CPU's, GPU's and even HDD's constantly shift in price.

They do.