Upgrade problem

Currently I have a Athalon XP 2400+ on some old rubbish MSI board with an AGP slot. I have a radeon 9250 in that slot.
My problem is that I would like a new graphics card, something a bit better, but I can't get anything higher than the highest AGP card which is looking like it costs about the same as a good PCI-E card atm.
To get a PCI-E card I would need a new mobo, which would require a new CPU, RAM, hard drives and PSU, which I don't have the money for.
Has anyone had this problem before ? and can they suggest a solution to it ?

Thanks

Not really. With a chip that old you are looking at a rebuild. Let us know what exactly you currently have, you budget, and let us see what we can do.

^^what he said.

Ok i will find out exactly tomorrow as now I need to sleep

System specs

Right i've found out my specs:

CPU :Athalon XP 2400+ Barton @1.8ghz
Mobo :ECS M848A
Graphics : ATI radeon 9250 @239 core 200 memory
Hard drive :80GB IDE drive
Memory :512MB Kingston PC3200 (200mhz) timings 2.5-3-3-7

I can see know looking around that I really do need an upgrade. I'm not sure exactly how old this computer is, but I'm the second owner, with the first owner using it to record CCTV.
Does it matter how big the screen is ? As I have just ordered a 22" widescreen this graphics card will run it right ?

Thanks

jhanby said:

Does it matter how big the screen is ? As I have just ordered a 22" widescreen this graphics card will run it right ?

Thanks

Click to expand...

it's not the physical screen size that matters, it's the resolution. yes it will run it. will it run it at a res that you're comfortable with? i dunno

well you can put in a faster cpu and video card in. imo you would be better building a new one with pcie as graphics. as the fastest agp card is a x1900xtx...

im wondering how much you have to spend, cause we might be able to fit a much nicer pc. then just upgrading ram/cpu/vid on your current one....

Evilsizer said:

im wondering how much you have to spend, cause we might be able to fit a much nicer pc.

Click to expand...

yeah, we rock at that.

Well my budget would probably be somewhere around £400-£500.I already know that I am going to buy the Antec P182 as my case. Bear in mind that I live in the UK

Thanks

you've PLENTY of room to work with. ditch that old hardware.

Thanks for the help guys I shall be upgrading soon

Thanks

intel E2140
Abit ip35-e
gskill ddr2-800 2gig kit HK's
fill in the rest, you will be good to about 3ghz on the cpu you may even get 3.2ghz. if you want to try higher go to a E2160 or E2180 cpu with a aftermarket heatsink.

roughly in US dollars that setup will run you 89 for the board the ram is 75,the cpu is 70ish so $234.

I would trade those HK's for Ballistix and go with the 2160. You will more than likely run out of FSB capability on the CPU before you hit 400MHZ so I would suggest getting the higher multiplier.

ou_phidelt said:

I would trade those HK's for Ballistix and go with the 2160. You will more than likely run out of FSB capability on the CPU before you hit 400MHZ so I would suggest getting the higher multiplier.

Click to expand...

well consider with the ram ratios he could run the ram at ddr2-800. which ballistix are you suggesting then? cause the HK's i have are doing near ddr2-1000 speed with tight timings and only 2.2v thats 4 1gig sticks...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/Evilsizer/gskill800hks.jpg

Heres a parts list what do people think of it ? And have I missed anything out ?


1 x Antec P182 Black Advanced Super Mid Tower

1 x Corsair HX Series 520W Modular PSU - ATX12V v2.2 APFC

1 x AMD Black Edition Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Socket AM2 2.6GHz Energy Efficient L2 1MB (2x512KB) Retail Boxed Processor

1 x Scythe Ninja-PLUS Rev B

1 x Sapphire HD 3850 256MB GDDR3 Dual DVI TVO PCI-E Graphics Card

1 x Corsair 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Non-ECC Unbuffered CL4(4-4-4-12) E.P.P. Heat Spreader

1 x Seagate ST380215AS 80GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 2MB Cache

1 x Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium x64Bit OEM 1PK DVD

1 x MSI K9N Neo-F V3 Socket AM2 nForce560 7.1channel audio ATX Motherboard

This all comes to £532.60

Thanks

That hard drive seems awful small for now days, is it a combo pack or free or something?

The difference between 80gb and 160gb or even 250gb is about $5-$15 more.
Also, the video card seems to have a lot of extras for a budget minded system. Could you get a card with less features that is just as powerful for less or possibly get a more powerful card that does not have features that you don't need? (EX, Crossfire capableetc etc)

Hmmm yeh i might change the hard drive to 160gb. I only picked that small a hard drive because I have an 80gb drive now and i havn't filled it up yet.
Does the rest of the system seem alright ?

Thanks

jhanby said:

Heres a parts list what do people think of it ? And have I missed anything out ?


1 x Antec P182 Black Advanced Super Mid Tower

Click to expand...

Sounds great, and you seem pretty set on it. The only one I've heard mentioned around here more than the P182 is the P190, but that's purely an anecdote. Check

1 x Antec NEO HE550GB 550W Modular PSU With 80mm Low Speed fan

Click to expand...

I've heard some bad things about the Antec NeoHE. For the price, and your build, it might be worth it, but I'd keep shopping personally. I'll see if I can't find an alternative around the same price tag for you. 550W should be enough though. Wait

1 x AMD Black Edition Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Socket AM2 2.6GHz Energy Efficient L2 1MB (2x512KB) Retail Boxed Processor

Click to expand...

I'm going for an Intel quad core, so I can't really say much here. But hey, I've never had any issues with AMD, so I suppose you can't go wrong. Check

1 x Scythe Ninja-PLUS Rev B

Click to expand...

Yes. May even be a little overkill, unless you'll be OCing your new rig. Check

1 x Sapphire HD 3850 256MB GDDR3 Dual DVI TVO PCI-E Graphics Card

Click to expand...

nVidia here, so again, out of my field. But it's DDR3, PCI-E, and in your budget range. Good enough for Lolek~! Check

1 x Corsair 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Non-ECC Unbuffered CL4(4-4-4-12) E.P.P. Heat Spreader

Click to expand...

As some others have suggested, I'm a fan of the Crucial Ballistic DDR2-800. But still, XMS2 should be fine. Check

1 x Seagate ST380215AS 80GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 2MB Cache

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2Mb cache is to small for me, personally. But I'm still running 5600s, so don't mind me. Check

1 x Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium x64Bit OEM 1PK DVD

Click to expand...

nghn... Check

1 x MSI K9N Neo-F V3 Socket AM2 nForce560 7.1channel audio ATX Motherboard

Click to expand...

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but this board supports SLI (nForce, and not even the 650/680), but you're going with an ATI card. I think you could make a better choice here. Wait


That's my suggestions at this point, but I'm fairly new to this, so definitely get third opinions! I'll see if I can't find alternatives in your price range.

Thanks for that ^ Lolek. hmm does it matter if the board isn't based on a ATI chipset ?

Thanks

It does not matter, but you cannot Crossfire down the road if you get a hold of a second card. If Intel isn't a problem to you, take a look at getting:

• E2140 (These are monsters and can do 100% OC)
• P35 Based Mobo (Asus P5K, Abit IP35, Gigabyte GA-P35 [My personal choice is the P5K-E Wifi])

I'm in the US, so I can't help out too much with pricing, but I expect these are similar to what you have now. The GA-P35-DS3L is a very popular motherboard because of it's great pricing. P35 boards can do 8x, 8x Crossfire.

I can't AMD at this point because of the insane pricing for AM2+ boards. However, if it were more reasonably priced, I would say an AM2+ board because of the upgrade path it offers. AM2 is kind of a dying technology, and can't fully support AM2+ CPUs (but can run them). At this point I recommend LGA775 boards because the launch of Penyrn in January, and the socket isn't due for retiring until Q4 of 2008.