well I have the following:

xp1600 cpu
ati radeon 8500 agp

so basically i want to upgrade to a modern cpu, but i'll need a new mobo of course. And witht that comes pci express, (I know I could get an agp board but NO) so I'd like a new video card, like to stay away from onboard video if possible.

My budget is about $400 for everything, I have ddr ram right now I'll keep for a while, its pc 3200. So Just help on mobo, cpu, and video please. I'd like to play some newer games but i won't be doing that much. GTR2 is a must though! Just want to be up to date!

I came up with this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131004

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103735

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102021

is there anything i am forgetting? The retail cpu has a decent fan? I am not going to overclock. I do realize that these 3 items will put me over my listed budget however I'd pay a little more for a significant leap in performance. Is the X2 worth it? I think so.

Also will my 400watt power supply that runs the asus A7V8X-X motherboard work OK here? I remember reading about new power plugs for motherboards a while ago, its been a while since I built this computer (obviously) and I've been letting my parents use it/I had a laptop in college so I didn't pay attention to PC specs. Now I want to tinker again. I think my 3 items will be good.



[Edited on November 19, 2006 at 9:33 AM. Reason : budget]

[Edited on November 19, 2006 at 9:46 AM. Reason : gtr2]

11/19/2006 9:28:57 AM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130056
http://www.portatech.com/catalog/viewitem.asp?ID=13568&O=4336

11/19/2006 2:09:09 PM

thanks for portatech link i'll browse there too

11/19/2006 7:40:23 PM

umm, that mobo and CPU you picked don't go together... a 939 and an AM2 chip won't do. Goin' AM2 will mean DDR2, so I'm thinkin ya wanna find a 939 X2, right?

11/19/2006 8:15:27 PM

not sure.....obviously!

11/19/2006 9:36:19 PM

OK so I made a killing at work on Black Friday so I said OK lets just go get parts in town. So I did:

MSI K9NU AM2 Mobo from Intrex
AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+ from Intrex
1gig ddr2 from Staples (I forgot to get it at intrex, got home took out the ram from the old machine and was like um not going to work in a ddr2 slot.....staples is a block away)
geforce 7900 from CompUSA

so I'm pretty happy

thanks for pointing out the Am2 slot difference that would have sucked to buy that. I also got a new power supply with a pci-e power adapter (that is what I was thinking some new adapter) although I could have used the one the video card came with, my other PS is 5 years old and has been turned on all day every day so......it was a good time to redo everything.

11/25/2006 7:33:40 AM