help selecting pc

so ive been looking to buy a better computer for a while now, and ive settled on most of the features. ive allready got a Geforce 9500 that arrived today, and im gonna stick to 2gb of ram, but i can't decide on a good processor or motherboard. i wanna keep the price reasonable as i still need to buy drives ect. but my main question is what would the performance difference be in a good quality single core processor, and a low-medium dual core one. i just wanna keep up with the new games coming out, but im not someone who cares about maxing all the settings out, just running smooth at around medium is fine for me. also i found that an athlon system would be a bit cheaper than a intel one, but im not too familler with thier nomenclature or anything, intel is easy, they just list the Ghz. any way the system im pretty close to now is

AMD athlon 64 dual core 4200 +

ECS A780GM-A motherboard

2GB ddr2 ram

GeForce 9500 gt 512mb

80gb hard drive

20x dvd-cd drive

okia 550w power supply with 6 pin connector

windows xp sp 2

all wrapped in a n APEVIA X-plorer case

grand total of around 400 usd.

any suggestions, additions? please help

thanks

Thata a quite cheaper computer! No doubt, but i suggest you go for an intel Core2Duo processor and Gigabyte motherboard with Intel G31 Xpress Chipset. That would only add up 50 to 60 usd! make your computer a worth spending machine! I had an AMD processor and the experience was just horrified! my motherboard was burnt due to over-clocked processor [as told by the Asus motherboard service center]. I didn't overclock my processor, pre-overclocked:angry: anyways do consider this once before buying! All the best!

hi,
i think Intel E8500 Core 2 Duo Processor - 8200/- Indian Rupee and Intel BOXDG965SSCK LGA 775 Intel G965 Express Micro ATX Intel Motherboard 12408/-Indian Rupee are best for you.

i think price for core 2 duo is fair you want to keep up with the new games coming out right ? but dual core mother board i think Old. In computer motherboard and processor is the most important part which one buy not easily going to change . so put good money in good part to buy . asus pn series is also good equipped .

so the general agreement is then intel is a better buy than amd? ok.

for an extra 40 usd i was able to go with the intel core duo e7200 the 8000+ series was a big jump (50 more than the 7200) and a biostar p43D2-A7 which has pci-e 2.0 support which is nice, i couldn't find the motherboards that were mentioned here im buying from a webiste, /www.googlebb.magicmicro.com that only has certain options. a better buy?