Please validate my PC upgrade shopping list!!

[mitchie]

I'm finally going to upgrade my ancient P4 rig to an AM2. I'll be re-using my case, PSU, hard/optical drives, sound card, nic card. Everything else get's a refresh:

1. GIGABYTE GA-M57SLI-Motherboard $132.99

1. BFG Tech GeForce 7950GT $269.99

1. Crucial Technology 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 533$244.99

1. AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ AM2 $195.00

That's a grand total of $843. Ouch!


Your thoughts?

 

[Ayah]

I suggest you go to an E6300 build for that price.
AM2 isn't bang for buck

 

[dBTelos]

What PSU do you already have? You might want to save then just to a mobo/CPU switch to support Conroe.

 

[Skott]

Yeah, E6300 and a Gigabyte DS3 or a ASUS P5B-D/E and overclock it. I believe these mobos are both QuadCore compatible which will extend the life of your mobo and ram a good deal longer so the upgrade after this one would require just a processor chip.

 

[thecrecarc]

i agree with the top. a year ago, AMD was king, but now, Intel is. Get C2D like a E6300

 

[IEC]

I'd wait. And upgrade everything at once. I don't know what your PSU is, but unless it's a QUALITY >350W-400W+ unit, it may have trouble...

 

[PhoenixOrion]

I agree with others,
for the same price point, i would go with the c2d e6300 and gigabyte combo.

 

[mitchie]

Hi everyone,

I have an antec 450W PSU, so it should be able to hack the upgrade...maybe?

How much faster is the E6300 over the X2 4200+ b/c they are virtually neck and neck on price.

 

[JEDIYoda]

just because they are neck and neck price wise means little.

 

[PhoenixOrion]

not to mention a "little" bit of future proofing as you can easily plop in a quad core kentsfield into a rev 2 gigabyte board with a bios flash...

once dual core conroe all of a sudden does not meet your usage requirements.

 

[nyker96]

get a E6300/6400 with P5B-E or D3 or DS3 board.

 

[mitchie]

Hey gang,

What DDR2 clock speed should I go with? Is 533 fast enough?

 

[Kromis]

I think you should dump that 7950GT.

 

[dBTelos]

Originally posted by: mitchie
Hi everyone,

I have an antec 450W PSU, so it should be able to hack the upgrade...maybe?

How much faster is the E6300 over the X2 4200+ b/c they are virtually neck and neck on price.

For the parts in your original post, you should be fine.

 

[mitchie]

The ASUS P5B-E only has 1 PATA port. Most of my hard drives are not SATA. Can someone recommend an Intel mobo with more PATA ports? Thanks

 

[brikis98]

def. go with an intel c2d system for that price instead. get an E6300 or E6400 and OC it to get some very impressive results... you'll need 667 or 800Mhz RAM to have more OCing headroom, but overall, the price will be VERY close but the performance much better.