Wondering if I should: overclock / upgrade:

[djstubbs]

Alrighty, I bought this PC back in March, and am fully aware of my :banghead: purchase on my video card.

3 GHZ P4 w/800 mhz fs bus [hyper threading]

1024 mb DDR-SDRAM

NVIDIA GEFORCE FX 5200 [256 mb]

80 gb hd [7200 rpm]

SB Audigy soundcard.

I'm basically wondering if an upgrade is needed, and if yes which parts.

And if I don't need to upgrade some parts, but should overclock them, how?>

[mmonnin]

What motherboard and what speed/brand RAM?

[djstubbs]

uhh let me run sandra real quick, it's an intel motherboard...

[djstubbs]

Intel D865 PERL

well that's my mother board, but hmm, i can't really find out what kind of ram i have...

i'm looking for c-puz real quick.

[djstubbs]

Ok the ram is:

Micron Technology DDR-SDRAM PC3200 - 512 MB
x2.

[KINGPIN]

you need to change you motherboard as soon as possible, the intel motherboards r wosrt i have ever seen with no options in bios , no overclocking , no ram timing , long startup time .......so so

[djstubbs]

what motherboard would you suggest?

[Geeky1]

PERSONALLY, I'd go with one of these four:
DFI LanParty Pro875B
DFI Infiniti 875
ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe
ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe

[djstubbs]

To be honest, I really have no idea how to even hook up a mobo.

Heck, i can barely hook up a new video./ sound card.

[muddocktor]

I'm going to go against everyone else and tell you not to buy a new motherboard, since you admit to being pretty new with hardware. You can't overclock an Intel mobo but it should be plenty fast enough if you would upgrade to a decent video card, like something using the ATI 9800 Pro video gpu or faster. Your present ram also isn't the best for overclocking either, but should run just fine at stock speeds. You will gain a lot more performance by upgrading the video card than changing out mobo and ram, for the same amount of money spent. You can get a 9800 Pro 128 Meg vid card for under $200.

[djstubbs]

thanks for the info.

this is exacly what i wanted from you guys in terms of feed back.

i am gonna buy a video card...

deciding between:

geforce 6800 128

or

ati radeon 9800 pro 256

[muddocktor]

dj, if you can afford it, I would say to go with the 6800.

[primesuspect]

Currently, the GF6800 is the best card for the money.

[madmat]

I can attest to that, I got the 6800 in an RMA from newegg and I was given the choice between it (yes, the 6800 128mb) and a 9800xt and I'm happy I chose the 6800 over the xt, the 6800 is simply amazing for the amount of power it has for a sub $300 card. The only complaint I have with it is it being limited to just 128mb's of ram, in older games such as UT2K3 running at 1600x1200 with FSAA and 8x or 16xAF enabled I believe the frame buffer becomes saturated and starts sending textures to system ram which slows things down a bit but other than that it's an awesome card.