Building new PC - some advice needed

[scsi stud]

Hello, after 3 years of having my 1GHz Thunderbird system, I finally think I need to start thinking about a new system. However, I have a few questions before I take the plunge.

-Should I be getting an AGP-based system or PCI-Express? I want this machine to last as long as my previous one, and I don't know if AGP is a technology that is slowly fading out...

-I currently have a GeForce Ti4200 AGP card, and it has been working wonders for me (especially since I got it new for $99 a few years ago). I am looking for a similarly priced card (lets say $200 and under) and want to get great performance with todays games such as the run-of-the-mill HL2, Doom, WoW, etc etc.. I did some research and found the nVidia 6600GT to be a great valued card, from what people are saying. Any advice on this? Maybe there's another chipset that is better for the money? Or maybe I should just keep my Ti4200 until prices drop in 6 months?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[imported_X]

For future proofing, you should go with PCI-Express. With a $200 budget, the 6600GT is your best bet. If you can afford a $300 card and don't mind waiting a couple weeks, the new X800XL will keep you happy for a long time.

 

[gamerj]

Well, the problem with PCI-express is, that u dont (yet) have lots of choices when it comes to motherboards and chips... (amd have a pci-express board yet by the way?)
If u dont mind that, and dont want to upgrade for a few years i would probably go for pci-express if i were u..

As for the card... nvidia is not my brand, but the 6600 series (plenty of choice btw) do a great job for their money (200 bucks or so right?)

Well or maybe an ati 9800 pro (DONT GET AN X600 OR X700, they suck in my opinion and that of many reviews)

p.s: dont ever count on price droppings when it comes to video cards...some just dont drop period lol..many dont, as a matter of fact

and be sure to look up some results for different manufacturers of the card u want to buy (prolly a 6600).... asus, msi, sapphire, and so on

 

[jvarszegi]

Since you're budget-conscious, here's my advice:

- Get a decent non-SLI PCIe nForce4 system. I don't think that, like some are claiming, AGP is already on its last legs; PCIe just has much more of a future. My A8N-SLI motherboard from Asus is rock-solid and feature-packed. If you wait a little while, nForce4 will also be released pretty soon for Intel chips, and ATI is working on a comparable chipset.
- Don't get the 6600 non-GT; it's not nearly as good a deal as the 6600GT, which can now be found for around $170. If you go with the 6600GT, read this first: Retail GeForce 6600GT Exploration
- Leave enough room in your budget, around $100 if you can, for a new SATA drive to use as your new system drive, then schlep your old IDE drives along as secondary/backup drives.
- Get value RAM if you get AMD, unless you can use older RAM for a while; 1GB in two 512MB sticks will cost you around $150. If you upgrade the processor in a couple of years, it will most likely be best paired with new RAM at that time, since the memory controller is on the processor and not the motherboard. (This is good, because it means that your motherboard will likely last for a long time.)

 

[scsi stud]

Thanks for the replies; I did some more research and saw that Abit has a new motherboard (has it been released yet?) called the Abit AX8; it's a Socket 939 motherboard with PCI-Express instead of AGP. However, I have yet to find a dealer that has it available.

Anyone know where I can find this motherboard?