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Contemplating upgrading - advice please?

S

Sidane

n00b
Joined
Apr 6, 2003
Messages
59
Hi,
I'm planning to do a fairly extensive upgrade but am not sure if I should go ahead and do it soon (within the next month) or wait 3 - 4 months.

The main thing holding me back is PCI-Express. Is it worth waiting until it's more mainstream or is it something I can go without in my new system for the next 12-18 months?

Am I right in saying the difference between a PCIe and AGP video card is negligible at the present time? And apart from increased bandwidth for graphics the PCIe offers no real other advantages (for now)?

My current system looks like this:

Dell Dimension 8100 (400mhz FSB)
P4 2.4ghz (powerleaped up from a 1.4ghz)
768megs RDRAM
2 x 120GB Western Digital Caviar (ATA/100, 8meg cache, 7200rpm)
Sony DVD RW DRU-510A
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS


Here's what I'm hoping to upgrade to - all subject to change if anybody can advise me on better options. My budget is around $1200 but I live in the UK so component prices are usually higher than in the US.

ThermalTake Tsunami Case
Antec TrueBlue 480W PSU
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Winchester 90nm (possibly a 3800 but not sure if it's worth the extra money)
Kingston HyperX 1GB DDR PC3500 (2x512MB)
WD Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM SATA

Mobo - undecided. Any advice on a good socket 939 one to go with that system?

From what I've read the 9800 Pro is still a good card so no need to upgrade that just yet. So keep the video card, optical drive, sound card and possibly the two drives (if not replace them with a large 7200rpm SATA drive).

Finally what kind of performance boost could I expect with that upgrade? Significant or not and most importantly one that's worth the money?

Thanks in advance.
 
I would upgrade now.

PCIE will either go mainstream, and get lower in cost....

or fizzle out.:(


Besides, the price of memory, and the like tend to spike the first few months of a new year. ( Info I got from an importer in Japan)
 
Thanks tmarshall. Tbh that's what I was hoping to hear.

I've decided to go with the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum mobo and OCZ RAM so my finalised spec is:

Thermaltake Tsunami Case
Antec TrueBlue 480W PSU
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum (Socket 939) Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Winchester 90nm (Socket 939)
OCZ 1GB (2 x 512MB) PC3200 Dual Channel Platinum Series EL-DDR REVISION 2 CAS2
Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 300GB SATA 16MB Cache

Should be able to do some nice overclocking with that.
 
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