Advice needed on upgrade

[lmadern]

I currently have an ECS L7VTA MB(KT400 chipset, it's time I upgraded right, lol) with an xp 2000+ mildly oc'd. I want to upgrade and want to stay in the following price range. $150-$225.

What will give me the most bang for my buck and stay within my price range?

Another socket A xp chip and no motherboard? (Socket A went to 2600+?)
or
Get a new 3200+ XP and accompanying mb? (If this option please recommend a good stable mb with decent oc'ing options)
or
Get an Athlon 64 2800 or 3000 with accompanying mb? (Also with this option recommend a good stable mb and would I need to get a new power supply with this mb/chip combo or could I use my 400w supply that I currently have?)

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

(Long time lurker, first time poster)

 

[Markfw]

I would get the Fry's special Athlon64 3xxx and motherboard for $199-$239 (depends on what is on sale) I got a 3200+ and motherboard for $219, and it is more stable than my Abit AV8 and 3200+ 939 pin (when OC'ing) My Abit can only get to 2230 and the Fry's setup is doing 2300 ! And you PSU is probably fine. (what is it though?)

 

[slurmsmackenzie]

get a celeron D on the 775

 

[perdomot]

What are you using the rig for? Gaming goes to AMD without a doubt but if video encoding is your thing, a Celeron D and a good 865PE mobo will do wonders. I had a 3200+ and the OC'd Cel D at 3.6 Ghz cut encoding time by about 20%. Trying to get it to 3.8 Ghz still.

 

[lmadern]

I do a little bit of everything with the computer. I rip/burn Dvd's (dvd encrypter -- dvd shrink if needed). I play games. I play games but since I don't play the FPS'ers I don't really need something that will crank out the frames. I convert vhs videos to create dvd versions of them. I surf the web, usenet, P2P, etc...

The reason I only gave amd options is because I know next to nothing about intel chips and their oc'ing, performance, or stability. I've always had amd chips since I left the Amiga platform in '92--(yeah I am dating myself) amd k6, k62, athlon t-bird, xp etc. I currently have 4 comps running at home--- amd xp2000+, amd xp1800+, amd k6-2 550mhz and a laptop with an amd processor (300mhz, lol).

So with that said maybe you can give a little more advice?
If I go with a Celeron D, will any mb with the 865PE chipset be as good as another as far as oc'ing and stability?

TIA

 

[21stHermit]

Originally posted by: lmadern
If I go with a Celeron D, will any mb with the 865PE chipset be as good as another as far as oc'ing and stability?

For OCing, an Asus ATX should be high on your list. When I was researching a Deleron, I came across this MSI MB that had good reviews from Newegg. Its advantage is cost and integrated video + 8X AGP.

Keep in mind that any Prescott core CPU will consume double the power under load and triple the power at idle of any A64 90nm. Go to Xbit's tests to see for yourself.

 

[lmadern]

Ok guys you convinced me to go with a Celeron. I've been surfing all day (at work, lol) and it seems that the Celeron D 320 oc's very well.

I'm thinking of getting the MSI 865PE Neo2-v and Celeron D from newegg.com.
I need a new PS and am thinking about getting the following:
http://www.directron.com/colortt420.html

Will that be a reliable PS? I've looked around and haven't seen anyone saying anything bad about it. Apparently TTGI is a decent PS?

I want to be able to OC the Deleron to 3 ghz which seems to be well within it's oc range as I've read people have gotten it up to 3.6 and some even beyond. I'll also be running 3 HDD's, and 8500 all in wonder, and 2 DVD-r drives. Hopefully the above PS will be good for what I want to do.

Thoughts anyone?

 

[o1die]

TTGI makes pretty good ps. One guy said they were made in the same factory as enermax.

 

[lmadern]

Ok I changed my mind.

I bought a Sempron 3100+, ThermalTake K8 Venus 7+ Cooler, Antec SL450, and a Chaintech VNF3-250 mb.

All this came to ~230 and should arrive Thursday or Friday.

This new setup should give me a decent performance boost I would think. Also I can always upgrade to an Athlon 64 later if I want to.

Plus I should be able to do a mild-medium overclock with this setup.

If anyone has this mb and proc and has oc'd it a bit, how did it do?