Possible upgrade path: Advice needed

[flawedexistence]

🙂 Well here goes. I'm currently running the following setup:

P!!! 733 (successfully overclocked to 825mhz)
ASUS CUBX rev1007 440BX chipset (remember those?) at 133fsb
512MB Crucial PC 133ECC RAM
GeForce 256DDR (Leadtek)
SB Live X Gamer
30G + 10G 7200 RPM Maxtor ATA66 Hard Drives
Kenwood True-X 72x CD ROM
HP 9100i 8x4x32 Burner
Win XP

Thing is, I'm getting a bit behind the technology curve again. I need to at the least upgrade to a GeForce3 or GeForce3Ti and kick the CPU up to 1GHZ. Due to circumstances beyond my control (my wife), I'm stuck with the basic config for now. I was wondering if you guys think I should switch over to a Tualatin board or not. I can get an ASUS TUSL2-c for about a hundred bucks, but I'm not sure it's worth it. I'd also be out about 70 bucks for 512 of RAM. I'm a bit reluctant to switch out the CUBX, as it runs fine up to 150 FSB. My other possible path is to rip out everything but the sound and network cards, throw in a Palomino 1600 with a DDR mobo (EPOX?). The price would be roughly the same, but I have some reservations about VIA based hardware; 4 in 1 drivers and such. I'd love to get some thoughts on this topic! Thanks in advance.

 

[AkumaBao]

well if want to stick with Intel I would suggest a Tulatin board. Looks like Intel is getting their stuff together with this CPU, but I don't see where is would cost the same to upgrade to a Socket A setup. A Palamino? Are you going to do a dual-AMD setup? Just go with a Athlon XP 1700+ since that's where the price breaks pretty bad. I would go with the Socket A, but that's just me. It's a lot cheaper, and I think it would be faster than the Tulatin. Just my opinion though.

 

[o1die]

Personally, if you want to stick with intel, go with the p4 socket 478 that should drop in price next month with the official release of the northwood cpus. Prices for the northwood are high; one place wants $679 for the 2.2 version, and another $479 for the 2.0. Prices for the old 478's may drop drastically in the coming weeks. Go with one of the new sis or intel 333 ddram chipset boards and the 1.7 or 1.9 version, and the upgrade won't be so costly.

 

[jfunk]

If you wanna save some money to make things easier w/ the wife, get an AMD board, like ECS K7S5A that will be able to continue using your SDRAM and an Athlon XP 1600 or so. Assuming you have a decent power supply, you should be able to do that for about $200.

Another $200 for a GF3 Ti200 or Radeon 8500 if you wanna bring your video card up to the newest. Or $75 for a GF2 MX400, which is still plenty to play anything out and less than half the cost.


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