Upgrading.

Hi, Am looking to upgrade my current machine ready for the next gen I keep reading about.

Anyway, Here's my current rig:-

P4 3.0ghz skt478
Gigabyte GA8IPE1000 (rev.4) Mobo
ATi Radeon 9600Pro 256mb
1gb DDR400 RAM
Maxtor Diamond MaxPlus 9 120gb Sata HDD

I'm starting to find my 9600Pro is getting not only old, but more on the obselete side.. After looking around looking for a skt478 PCI-E mobo I found out only 3are being manufactured, and apparently there not great. So I decided I may aswell save up a little longer and go all out, upgrade to a bleeding edge machine. Heres basically what I'm looking at..

AMD X2 4400+ skt939 1mb+1mb cache
Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 mobo
ATi Radeon x1800xt 512mb / 7800GT (I dnt want to start another debate, I just know these are my choices.)
Antec Smartpower 450pgb 450w PSU (My older Enermax 300w wouldn't cope with the new Gfx I think)
and a Coolermaster Centurion 5 case to house it all in.

I'm also looking to add another 1gb of RAM to the system but am not sure whats best in that area.

So heres my question, Is what I have listed above a "bleeding edge" system, Is there some new peice of technology just on the horizon that'll over take one of those peices, Or am I pretty much safe at the top end for a decent length of time?

Thanks,
Orsenfelt

Pretty close to top end there. As soon as you buy it, something better will come out. It is the way of electronics. However, there are a few new things coming out in the future that may make you wait. New CPUs from both AMD (adding DDR2 support) and Intel (Early reports are that this new processor rocks). Both should be ready in a few months, July timeframe iirc.

Personally, I am waiting to see the performance improvents of the upcoming cpus before I decide on upgrade path.

Yeah, Am really not sure where to go for the CPU. With AMD bringing there new Socket out and with Conroe on the horizon am really not too sure, I guess its just wait and see time.

The X1800XT will generally beat out a 7800GT in most benchmarks. The X1800XT is closer to the 7800GTX in terms of performance.