Upgrade advice needed.

[rdb]

Background:

I traded a laptop to my friend for his motherboard, CPU, ram and some cash. I dident get hosed on the deal, but its not exactly top of the line stuff.

Current system:

Asus A7N8X deluxe, axp 2400+, 1gb of unidentified mushkin PC3200, ATI radeon 9000 pro, good copper heatsink, looks to be a thermalright with an 80mm fan.

My needs:

I need to have a video card with both DVI and VGA outputs, I have 2 monitors, a dell P1110 and a viewsonic VP171b. I would like to retain the board and ram, its not top of the line, but it should have support for all of the current athlon xp proccessors, right? My budget is $500. I dont upgrade often, so I would like to have a system that will still run current games a couple years from now.

The computer is used for mostly webbrowsing, but I do play a good bit of FFXI and NFS:U, and frequently use it to watch movies. I leave it on 24/7, so stability is key. Overclocking is a big no.

 

[ZodaEX]

I'd buy a Fast 8X apg video card.

 

[ashmedai]

I'd just snag a 6800, the AGP version is under $200.

Then again if you have $500 to blow, A64 isn't out of reach, even with the $300 left after the vid card. Venice 3200 @ 2.7GHz is pretty easy to hit even with stock cooling.

 

[o0akoni0o]

I'd just snag a 6800, the AGP version is under $200.

Then again if you have $500 to blow, A64 isn't out of reach, even with the $300 left after the vid card. Venice 3200 @ 2.7GHz is pretty easy to hit even with stock cooling.

i agree. a nice agp and a new cpu and mobo is a good way to future proof that system. having said that, what else do you have? is that all you have or do you have a case, psu, hard drive waiting?