Seeking advice on upgrade with $600 budget.

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RayMoses

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Greetings, well with Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion out and other games I'm finding my computer is once again going to need an upgrade. As per-usual I don't have a lot of money at the moment. However, I've worked out about $600 bucks (+/- $100) for this upgrade -- and I'd like to make the most out of it.

Here are my current specs:

2.8GHz (@3.06 GHz) 533MHz FSB w/ 512KB L2 Cache
Asus P4T533-C RDRAM MB
1 Gb RDRAM PC-800
80GB Western Digital UltraATA 7200RPM 8MB Cache
AGP ATI Radeon X850 XT PE 256MB -- I won this in a contest :)
Soundblaster Audigy
400 Watt PSU

So from what I can tell it would be a good idea to go ahead and grab a new MB, CPU, and RAM. However, not sure what to go for and if I'll need to upgrade my PSU as the X850 is already probably pushing its limits.

I'm thinking mabye getting a 939 Socketed MB (has to have AGP for my video card), AMD Athlon 64 4000, and then 2 gigs worth of Ram.

However, I'm not sure of a number of things, including if I should upgrade my PSU, and I'd really just like some opinions/expert advice.

Thank you for your time,

Ray
 
If you are going to upgrade get a PCI-E Slot I know you want to keep your video card. Thats what I did when I upgraded I bougth a new motherboard with an agp slot, and now I'm kicking myself. When Vista launches you'll want a PCI-E slot for th DX 10.
 
Save your money untill Vista launches. Personally I think right now is a terrible time to upgrade. The new socket is comming out prices will drop for 939 chips.
 
Yes I suppose you're both right.

I was just hoping to grab this upgrade and then next year with my taxes back I could build a whole new PC. It just kills me right now to run so many new games on non-high settings.

Well anyway, thanks for your advice.
 
i made these just incase youll change your mind :D

option1
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (154$)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103535

CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB) PC3200 (78$ after rebate)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145450

EVGA GEFORCE 7800GT (259$ after rebate)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130247

total after rebates+shipping 594.09$


option 2 (in this one you keep the current video card,gets stronger processor+more ram)

ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 (66.99$)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157081

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 355$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103547

G.SKILL Value Series 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC3200 (146.10$ after rebate)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231032

total after rebates+shipping 578.84$ , that asrock mobo is based on the ULi chipset it have agp & pci-e although its performance is slightly lower then nforce4 based mobos (3-5%) and it lacks some features more expensive mobos have+youll never be able to use sli but thats not so bad , youll be able to upgrade to a pci-e video card later on

you might need to get a new psu i recommend this one
http://www.thenerds.net/index.php?page=productpage&affid=6&pn=SP450
(its more expensive on newegg)
 
thats not an option , his mobo supports rdram not ddr also it have agp and not pci-e
 
Hey, thanks Jeremy. I appreciate it.

I like option 2 as I'm pretty happy with my video card since it's fairly high-end.

However, I've read that ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 has problems with an AGP video card since it's also PCI-E. Basically it causes a ton of problems with games if using an AGP slot video card in it. There's a few other 939 slot AGP mobos so I'll look at them too.

Although I may wait now for upgrading.

In anycase, thanks again.
 
you welcome :D , where did you read it exactly? ive never heard about it , also only the ULi based mobos have REAL agp support , mobos thats based on other chipsets that have agp+pci-e have FAKE AGP (agp that runs incredibly slow on the pci bus)
 
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