Need help with old pc from thrift shop (Kind of)

So here is the deal. In a neighbor hood a mile up the road their is a "maintance shack" where for that set of apartments and town houses the carpentars keep their tools, and they also pick up old things left on the curb, depending on value. So a while ago they picked up an emachine T6212 with windows XP on it and a 3200+ amd athlon in it and a gig of ram. And since they are tired of all the stuff laying around there they let me have it for free. The big ticket item is that it has a PCI by 16 slot. The computer boots. So this is my problem I am having. At the same place they had a radeon 4350. When I put it in it doesn't boot. Mind you the card has been sitting there for a couple years. Also since I was preety youing when the 3200+ came out so if some one could tell me what socket type that would be great. But my final question is whether I should go all the way in upgrading it, put in an ssd, 750 ti, better CPU, more ram? Or should I not try at all? Also @Atomic_Charge since the windows 98 computer kind of fell through, could you put this in to count. Also pictures are coming soon/

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OK, here is the thing...
Athlon 3200+ could be either socket 939 with DDR400 or socket AM2 with DDR2 support.
The way to find out is just to check the ram.
If the ram is DDR400 or 333 or whatever - no way this thing can be upgraded in any useful manner.
If the ram is DDR2, then you can go all the way to a dual core AM2 CPU, such as 6000+, the dual core 3GHz I believe, that is huge hot chip, but it will handle stuff just fine even on Win7 with some extra ram...
And don't go for 750Ti... Go cheaper... The system will not utilize it anyway...

I plan to start really gaming and I want to do more, you say the system won't utilize it, could you explain?

edit: My thoughts are that if I get a dual core that runs at 2 to 3 gigahertz that could trade blows with something like the pentium G3250, and I see this as an opportunity to give myself a more powerful computer at a much lower cost, mind you I am coming from a first gen mobile i5 with integrated graphics

Let's say the system is AM2, you somehow find Athlon X2 6000+ or 5800+ or something...
You also add extra ram...
We are talking 2006 chip, 90nm technology from 10 years ago, when the highest performance graphics card was ATi 1950 and GeForce 7950...
You are talking about GPU, about 17,3 thousand times more powerful... The dual core will not be able to take advantage of the 750Ti at all... May be something like Radeon 250/350... But nothing more powerful... And this is if it is AM2...
If the system is s.939 (DDR1), it is pointless to even try to upgrade. Then we talk more than 10 years old...
No dude... Current pentiums trade blows with current quad cores from amd, not 10 years old dual cores... Sorry.

so your saying that the gpu would be bottle necked by the older CPU? Also you say that a 250 and or 350 will not be bottle necked by the cpu, do you know of any GPUs on team green that also won't bottle neck it? The things I want to do need cuda acceleration.

Well, I guess we are going under 750, so 740 or 730...
Gaming wise, the PC is absolute garbage. Sorry, but it is. I do not know what you want to do with it, that you need CUDA acceleration for. If we are not talking CPU intensive tasks and you really need the power, then 750Ti is quite OK. However, this 6000/5800/whatever cpu you upgrade to, will bottleneck everything.

well if I can't get the power I want, I plan to install a linux distro, and either use it as a print server or turn it into a multimedia center so that I can record tv shows and play emulators.

OK, I am officially an idiot.
I just Googled the model T6212...
Processor Socket Socket 939
No point in doing anything. I believe there is one or two models of dual cores for that socket. But they suck... DDR1 ram, it is pointless...

The PSU emachine used in it probably doesn't have enough cowbell to power a graphics card. They like to use the most basic components they can and it's probably proprietary too.

My dau had the 1300 model that I stripped for parts
If it came with an emachines monitor that is good. Mine is only 19 inches, has no hdmi but is a ful 1080 and better quality picture then my Dell 24. The PSU was good quality(to me) quiet but only 220 watss and has a VERY short wire harness to the MB.
The case was great until I tried to put a normal MB inside and found out mine has a proprietary MB so that was a bust.
Stock HD was only 160 gb
The Athlon 2650e was half as fast as yours and ran LXLE very well. Does arcade games ok.
It would be great with retro games or the PSU, hd and DVD will work APU+ MB.
Did it come with a monitor?

Don't bother upgrading it. Anything Dual core from that time would be a joke compared to the dual cores that we have now.

And that's a socket 939, not a socket AM2.

It would be good for emulation up to PS1. It will play a game like Morrowind on lowest settings but it will be choppy. If it is a x16 you can put a gt 730 in it but I wouldn't bother with anything higher as already stated above by others. The system bus speed is the real problem and the FX-60 CPU cost around $200, and an Emachines probably won't take a Opteron 180. I mean if it does those they run from $30-60 but by that time you could build a more modern build with less driver nightmares and component issues with a faster System Bus. But definitely good for trying things with Linux.

well at the same place there was another computer with a 480 watt psu, installed that and I am good, that is infact what I am typing this on.

I'm going to install a distro, haven't decided yet, I want install plex and at the same place I found an analog to digital recorder, and some how I think I can record the TV with it. Definitely going to use it for emulation. Also do you know if having something like a 730 will help with dvd decoding and media playback, it is somewhat glitchy with youtube playback.

at the same place a guy there had a 1080p monitor, and he said I could take it, so I did

eh if you're already using a mobile i5 with integrated gfx, you can't really upgrade this new system to be better than it.

at best you could use it to browse the web and check emails. the 3200+ is seriously old

That's great. The reason I asked is on some older monitors (like mine) there is no hdmi hookup. It can be a pain since some video cards don't have vga output.