What to Do...Help Pls!?!

[Nemesis]

Ok here is my current system:

Case: Lian Li PC-60
Mobo: A7N8X-E Deluxe
CPU: Athlon XP 3200+
Ram: 1GB OCZ EL DDR PC-3200 Platinum Revision 2 (2x512MB)
Video Card: BFG 6800GT OC (AGP)
Sound Card: Audigy 2 ZS Gamer
HD: 250GB Western Digital (PATA 133)
Burner: Plextor PX-708A
Power Supply: 500 watt raidmax
Monitor: Gateway FPD2185W
Keyboard/Mouse: Microsoft Wireless Laser Desktop 6000 v2

I notice more and more with new games that I am falling way behind in terms of effects/resolutions I am able to run. I would love to begin to play games closer to my monitors native 1680x1050 resolution. With that said I am obviously looking to finally update my system.

I would love to be able to do this for as little money as possible. I have $350-$500 to spare and am wondering if this is at all possible? I am planning to reuse as much as I can from my current system (case, monitor, hard drive, keyboard/mouse, sound card, power supply) in order to keep the cost down as much as possible.

I realize most people will say to simply save up but I have a nice sum of money coming to me in about 1-1.5 years in the form of a bonus and will I will definitely buy a "New" system at that time. I simply need something to help me get by until then.

Well after a night of sleep and some more reading/research I think I may have come up with a solution.

Here is the wishlist I put together at newegg for this upgrade: Cheap Upgrade

I know this isn't going to be the benchmark king but in terms of performance when compared against my current system I think it will be a big jump. What really has me excited is this tops out at $400 (if you figure in the video card mail in rebate). Is this worth the $400???

Here are the two articles that really got me excited about this combo:

1. ASRock 775Dual-VSTA: Does DDR2 matter?

2. ASRock Core 2 Duo: AGP/PCI Express Graphics Performance

I was wondering if the experts here could make any suggestions if this is as good as its going to get for me... Or if anyone can recommend a different route for me to take...

Thanks in advance for any/all help and sorry for such a long post =/

 

[thrawn86]

"However, the bottom line is that AGP performance is better than PCI-E performance on this particular motherboard."

edit: You mentioned wanting to play games at 1680x1050. Remember that as rez gets higher, your fps becomes more and more gpu limited, and that x4 limitation on the asrock board will become more and more of a factor. I would have liked them to do a agp and pciexpress test of the same card, like the x850 or something, but still.

For 500$ max, I think you're better off going with a full pcie setup.
e6300 - ~180
mobo ~100
gpu - x1800xt/x19050 pro/7900gt will be around 200$.

Not to mention the face that the asrock board won't let you overclock much, and I'm assuming you might want to do some of that inthe future when you have the funds (since, after all, you do have an e6300 which will overclock very well)

You definitley want to get some ddr2 memory and some decent cooling ( figure about ~225$) as soon as you can, overclocking, even modestly (plus the added bonus form ddr2) will drastically increase your systems performance.