Advice needed for new desktop build

Greetings,

I think that I should first mention that I am a new member to these forums, so please be nice to me. Also, I live in England, but I have found this website to be the best for hardware guides out there. I will be ordering my parts through eBuyer.

I am considering building a desktop from scratch, but also using some old parts from my current eMachines desktop (model T2082). You can find the system specs and suggested upgrades here . But since the suggested upgrades were so terrible, I decided to build a new machine altogether. A university student budget being what it is, I can only use relatively cheap components. I will be buying a new case, power supply, processor and motherboard.

I have already inserted extra memory and an nVidia FX 5600 graphics card into my eMachines desktop, but this machine has taken me as far as I can go. So I plan to take the memory, hard drive and graphics card into the new desktop.

I am mainly using the hardware from this post of a budget gaming machine provided by Easybeat. The only change I have made is the motherboard. I have decided to use this Biostar motherboard since it has an nForce chipset and both an XGP slot (similar to AGP, but with limited support for certain graphics cards) for my old graphics card, and PCI express slots for a potential upgrade some time in the future. I may also be buying a cheaper AMD Venice +3000 due to budget constrictions.

Here are the parts that I intend to use:

• Ebuyer Extra Value Kg-188 ATX Midi Tower Case In Black, with USB/Audio, No Psu (063768 66): £12.99
• Ebuyer Extra Value 500w ATX Power Supply in Blue, with Dual Fans (061309 489): £10.99
• AMD (Venice) Athlon 64Bit 3000+ Socket 939pin 512k L2cache 90nm Retail Boxed Processor (88105)
• Biostar NF4ST-A9 SKT939 NVIDIA nForce4 chipset Dual DDR400 PCI-E ATX (98184)

The numbers in brackets are the quick find code for eBuyer . The specs for the Biostar motherboard and an explanation of XGP can be found here .

I have always found forums and forum users friendly and helpful in the past. I would appreciate it if anybody could find the time to critique my proposed hardware set-up and perhaps warn me about any potential pitfalls that a complete beginner such as myself could run into. Besides this, I have three major questions.

Is it possible to upgrade all of these components and still use the same hard drive, memory and graphics card? What potential problems could I run into?

Can AMD processors make use of the PCI express technology, or is it just Intel, or is the PCI express technology in the motherboard chipset? This might seem quite basic but I am a complete beginner.

Is my set-up compatible? I did my best to check the compatibility of the components using the resources on your website and checking the component specs on eBuyer, but I would just like to be reassured by someone who knows a lot more than I do just incase I have made a mistake.

Thanks in advance for any advice and help posted in reply. Do not hesitate to post the obvious, because nothing at the moment is obvious to me. For all I know I may have missed out an essential system component. I will use this website’s resources to find out how to assemble the components together to create a working PC and perhaps overclock the CPU when I am feeling confident enough.

Thanks again. I will be checking this thread as regularly as I can.

I'm assuming your current vid card is AGP? If so, it won't work in a PCI-E slot. You need a vid card specifically made for PCI-E for that to work. So, if you have an AGP vid card and plan to use it, you'll need a motherboard with an AGP slot, not PCI-E.

The ram and the hard drive will be compatable with your new mobo, but the graphics card wont. I do not know if your 5600 is on the compatibility list because I do not know waht brand it is. Honestly I think your best bet would be to save a little more $$$ and get a different mobo and a pci-express card. If you are interested in that then let me know and I will see what I can come up with. Also if you could state some sort of a budget that might help.

I'm assuming your current vid card is AGP? If so, it won't work in a PCI-E slot. You need a vid card specifically made for PCI-E for that to work. So, if you have an AGP vid card and plan to use it, you'll need a motherboard with an AGP slot, not PCI-E.

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I will respond to this with a quote from my original post.

The only change I have made is the motherboard. I have decided to use this Biostar motherboard since it has an nForce chipset and both an XGP slot (similar to AGP, but with limited support for certain graphics cards) for my old graphics card, and PCI express slots for a potential upgrade some time in the future.

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In response to acompdudes' post:

The ram and the hard drive will be compatable with your new mobo, but the graphics card wont. I do not know if your 5600 is on the compatibility list because I do not know waht brand it is.

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Good news about the RAM and the hard drive. My main fears have been allayed. Regarding the graphics card, I'm not sure precisely what card and manufacturer it is, and I'm not sure how to find out. I only know that its a FX5600 chipset and some of these are listed on the compatibility list. But I'm willing to take my chances and if it isn't supported, cough up the dough for a relatively cheap PCI express card.

Honestly I think your best bet would be to save a little more $$$ and get a different mobo and a pci-express card. If you are interested in that then let me know and I will see what I can come up with. Also if you could state some sort of a budget that might help.

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That's a very generous offer for advice. The basic hardware that I have come up with is for my current budget, and I can't do any better. If there is better hardware out there for a similar price range, I'm interested.

However, I could potentially come into much more money with the prospect of a summer internship coming up. So if you could suggest a different hardware set-up for the £150-200 price range, excluding a video card, that would be helpful. Also, a decent motherboard with good prospects for future upgrades would be a priority.

If you don't have the time, don't worry. Thanks for your help so far.