A question about upgrading

[tyrannusmaximus]

I'm not going to be upgrading right away, but I have been giving some thought as to what the best route would be. I haven't built or upgraded a PC in a while, and I'm a little behind on some of the hardware out there. I've been reading up on Anandtech, Tom's Hardware, and other sites, but I could use some peer's opinions.

I'm hoping to upgrade to a dual-core setup, and I'm open to suggestions from both the AMD and Intel points of view. I would like decent graphics capability, but I want to keep things as reasonably priced as possible. I would like to switch to Serial ATA as well.

Below are my specs... should I plan on starting from scratch (possibly with the except of case/power supply), or can I use some of my current parts in a future upgrade? Any input would be appreciated.

Athlon XP 1500+ cpu
VIA KT266 motherboard
768 MB DDR RAM - (512 MB PC2100 stick, and 256 MB PC2300 stick)
Geforce 4ti 4200 128 MB
ATA-100 hard disk

 

[bamacre]

Time to sell off that system. 😀 The parts are too outdated to use in a new system (although we don't know what kind of case/PSU you have).

Best place to start is your budget, so let us know how much you'd like to spend.

 

[acegazda]

The amount you'll get for your former system is nominal, so if you'de like you can keep it for word processing. The amd x2 3800+ is a good choice for $300, you don't need SLi so u can stick with an asus a8n-e ($90) and a saphire x1800xt ($249). For RAM you can stick with corsiar value RAM ($150...2x1gb will keep you future proof) but for the same $$$ you can find a high performance OCZ set after MIR. Seagate and western digital make good sata drives (~$90 for 250gb w/o MIR) and you can probably find a good deal at a local computer store. You shouldn't need more than 250gb. A good budget case choice would be the cooler master centurion 5 ($55). The PSU is VERY important, thus it si VERY important that you pick a good one. I recommend the Enhance 5150g ($70) it is 500w and has a combined 28amps on the 12v rails. That should do it. Have Fun....Links below.

Asus a8n-e
athlon x2 3800+
Enhance 5150g PSU
Coolermaster centurion 5
OCZ 2x1gb RAM

 

[Omizzle]

First of all, what is your budget?

 

[pkme2]

What are planning to use it for? Gaming, business, school, or whatever?

 

[sniperruff]

i have something similar: 1700+ with a GF3 Ti500 on a KT333 with 768mb of PC2100. i feel that it's good enough for browsing and counter strike 1.6... so i don't need to upgrade.