Upgrade advice...

noiseordinancenoiseordinance
edited September 2006 in Hardware
I have $500 to upgrade my computer and here's what I currently have:

ASUS A7V8X-X Mobo
Athlon 2800XP
Gainward GeForce 5900xt 128MB (AGP)
2x256MB DDR400 Samsung RAM
1GB DDR 400 Kingston Value RAM
80GB Maxtor (ATA133)


I'm selling all of that to a friend except for the Kingston memory. I already have a nice full ATX case with 5 case fans and a good 420w power supply. Also have CD drives and such. So pretty much, I need a new motherboard, cpu, cpu fan, hard drive, and video card as well as memory pointers. The Kingston 1GB is brand new, as in less than a week old. I just bought it and installed it once before deciding I should upgrade my computer. At this point I can't return it, so I'm thinking I may have to sell it and buy DDR2 but I've been slightly out of tough lately with computer technology and am still catching on to what exactly DDR2 is for. If I understand correctly, DDR2 is for overclocking. I am intersted in overclocking, although I'm wondering if I could make due with the memory I have now and upgrade to DDR2 shortly after I buy the rest of the components?

Anyways, I've been looking at the Athlon 64 4000 with maybe a PCI Express GeForce 6800... any suggestions would be awesome, as well as tips with this whole DDR2 deal. I'm hoping that $500 in upgrades will spank my previous AMDxp system.

Any help would be AWESOME!

Thanks!

Comments

  • noiseordinancenoiseordinance
    edited September 2006
    PS - Sorry to bother with something like this. I'm sure this kinda thing gets posted here all the time. It's just that I've stepped away from reading about computer hardware for the last year (due to being broke) and I'm trying to catch up on what I've missed out on now that I have some money to spend.

    Thanks again

    (PPS - Is AM2 the only socket that accepts DDR2? Should I just stick with socket 939 for budget reasons? Just trying to get the most bang for my buck)
  • Datsun-1600Datsun-1600 Sydney.au
    edited September 2006
    Socket 939 is at the end of it's life, AM2 could be (not really to sure, as reports are unclear) a stop gap to AM3 and quad-core, even though they are saying AM2 boards will support AM3.

    You are best looking at prices between 939 and AM2, and working out which way to go, that is best bang for buck, remembering that for you, a Socket 939 upgrade doesn't require you to purchase RAM.

    If you decide to go DDR2 (it is not overclocking RAM as you perceive, it is a totally different technology, that is not compatible with DDR1 motherboards), have a look at Intel's Allendale/Conroe platform.

    Which ever way you go, a 24 pin PSU will be needed, so factor the cost of a decent PSU in the upgrade.

    Datsun 1600
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