upgrade from 2 yr old system

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Gawd
Joined
Mar 15, 2002
Messages
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The story is that my Radeon 9800 Pro went belly up. I need a new vid card or core system upgrade.

Current setup:2+ yr old
P4 2.4 with hyperthreading (don't know name of core)
Intel P875BZK mobo (canterwood chipset)
1 GB PC3200 Crucial RAM
Radeon 9800 Pro (dead)

I am on a VERY limited budget. I need to keep this at 400 plus shipping. I could either get a new AGP card or a new core system so that I can be prepared for the future a bit more. I was looking at this setup:

AMD Sempron 64 3200+ 1.6Ghtz
1 GB DDR2 Geil PC800
Biostar Tforce 550 AM2
Leadtek winfast PX73000GT 128 MB DDR3 (will upgrade to DX10 card in future)

Would the processor and video card that I have selected be comprable to what I have now or will it be faster, and by how much.

Would the better deal be to get an AGP card and be done with it or get a new core system.

I appreciate any advice I can get.
 
MD_Willington said:
Where are you located? If it's under $10 I'll pay shipping on your 9800+
Click to expand...

I'm in northeast TN. The cards fan stopped working and the heat has somehow damaged the card just enough to mess up gaming and heavy usage. Regular use is not affected. But when you try to game, or run a video, the card artifacts, tears, crashes, freezes, and etc. I pulled a fan off an old heat sink I had and put it on the card, but that didn't help out matters. An acquaintance of mine had a similar situation happen to him. He went as far as buying another 9800 pro, removing the bad heat sink fan off and replacing it with the new cards heat sink fan just to test. Needless to say he ended up having to use the new card and trashing the old one. Card is fried.

Technically, I'm still using the card. After I get a replacement I'll send it to you.
 
TN? i think the egg charges tax there, no? that sux... anyhow, if you wanted a core2duo, its possible while reusing your pc3200 ram:

$182 - Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz
$115 - BFG Tech BFGR76256GTOCE Geforce 7600GT 256MB ($145 - $30MIR)
$56 - ASRock 775Dual-VSTA Socket T (LGA 775) VIA PT880 PRO
============
$383 + $35 (tax) + $9 (shipping) - $30 (BFG MIR) = $397 shipped, after rebates

Re-use your DDR400 ram, HDD, Case/PSU, etc. You'll have a blazin' fast CPU and a midrange card that should last you a while (since you were using a 9800pro). Anandtech did several articles on that board... here's some links:
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2810&p=1
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2813&p=1
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2814&p=1

Also, its only a $56 board... you can replace it with a much nicer board when you have the cash flow. You could also sell off your 1gb sticks now for about $95, and buy 1gb ddr2 for about $105, then upgrade to 2gb later. You'll be setup with a niiiice cpu that can overclock pretty well on the stock intel hsf: http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2802&p=2

This will blow that sempron system out of the water. You can still get the 7300GT if you wanted to wait for DX10 cards.
 
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