and i need some direction. my current PC specs are:

Windows XP Pro
Pentium 4 3.2 GHz HT
1024 MB Kingston PC 2700(i think)
P5P800 Mobo (asus)
Maxtor 160GB HDD
nVidia GeForce 6800

I have a total of 400 dollars i'm willing to dedicate to an upgrade; currently i'm thinking of just upgrading the RAM to a higher speed or more of it.

but i cant really think of what to do with it from there.

i was given 1200 for grad and have 860 left (spent most of my money on clothes for school *going to be attending heald*) and want to dedicate 400 to upgrading my PC or at least doing something with it.......

Still is a very capable machine you've got there. If I look at the specs of your mobo, it says it is compatible with DDR400 (PC3200). Are you sure you have PC2700? You may have PC3200 and this mobo support no higher than that.

Anyway, the RAM is probably the only thing I would add to. One more gig wouldnt hurt. But if I were you, I would save the money and wait for next year or a couple of months to upgrade this PC. I mean, the CPU is pretty good and latest socket, the video card isnt outdated...

Three months ago I wanted to upgrade from a:
3ghz 533mhz fsb s478
1 gig PC2700
radeon 9600xt

but I thought this was still too good to just let the parts I wouldnt use in a closet. So what I did was, I took a case, dvd-rom, cd burner, floppy, hard drive, all spare parts, assembled them with the mobo, cpu, video card, ram and sold it for 800$CAN. So now it wasnt lost money
I then could buy :
3.4ghz lga775 2mb cache
1gig ddr2 533mhz (intend to buy 2 more gig in the next few months)
radeon x850xt 256mb
maxtor sata 250gb

for about 1700$CAN. that means I upgraded my pc for about 900$CAN out of my pocket at that time. Pretty good huh? Got money back for parts I wouldnt have had money for at the first place.

You could do the same thing if it pleases you. But if you do, search in stores near you and sites on internet for lowest prices (dont forget to calculate the shipping). If you dont have spare parts you could buy some.

Oh yeah and dont build the system to sell before having a buyer... I sold it before it was assembled... heh heh that way I wouldnt have made it for nothing should have I not sold it.

So if you choose that option and need further assistance, give me a nod and I will be glad to help.

You'll need to indicate what sort of computing tasks you wish to perform on the system in order that worthwhile advice can be given.

In the absence of such information, I can only advise that $400 spent on upgrading that system is money spent for the sake of spending money, and would be better used as savings toward your next PC.

into hardcore gaming basicly...

You could do something like I did or wait for later upgrade. Just like I said previously.

The new generation display cards are PCI-E only, at least initially. Any change other than a better display card will do stuff-all to make your games faster more than just a tiny tad.

Keep saving mate, and by the time you get more dollars together there will likely be games which take advantage of dual-core processor rigs

Yeah, BTW when are these coming out?

What? Dual core processors? They're already available.

:o lol, it's the quad-cores that arent out.

buy an SLI ready mobo and another 6800GT(comes to a little more than $400) then you would have a bad gaming machine.