System upgrade advice please

[JustinTD79]

Two years ago I built a system...... P4 2.8ghz/533fsb, Asus P4T533 motherboard, 512mb pc1066 rambus ram, ati radeon 9700 pro, etc. That was back when rambus ram was a good idea.....but now it seems too expensive to justify me buying another 512mb. My question is this.....Should I stick with this system for a while and just get 512mb more rambus ram, OR should I get an AMD athlon-64 3500+ or better, a new motherboard, DDR ram (not sure what kind to get), and maybe a new video card too? I would then just sell my P4, motherboard, and ram. I plan on playing games like Doom3 and Half-life2 (the former of the two primarily). Any advice?

 

[iamskew]

sounds to me like you've already decided on the amd-64...i say go for it

 

[JBDan]

I had this exact system but with a 2.53 p4. My amd 3500+ system puts the p4 to shame in absolutely everything especially gaming. Go with the AMD system and you will be quite impressed with the difference.

 

[JustinTD79]

What motherboard and ram do i get? Is my radeon good enough?

 

[JBDan]

Depends on your budget, what you like, and if your going to oc. I like Asus and MSI. As far as RAM I like corsair XL, but it really matters what you want. Get a gig of RAM. When you select your mobo look for compatible ram modules. Your Radeon9700pro is such a favorite card of mine, but will just not run the latest games (farcry,doom) at an enjoyable framerate. Go with next gen card preferrably a Nvidia 6600gt if your on budget and if not then 6800gt best bang for your buck.

 

[ts3433]

Your 9700 Pro can certainly hold you for a while. Get a gig of value PC3200 RAM (CL2.5; probably 2x512), unless you overclock (consider TCCD CL2 PC3200; make sure to get 1 DIMM on S754 when overclocking). Motherboards: Depends on whether you go S754 or S939 and whether you NEED PCIe or not. (I recommend staying with AGP for now.) For a value NF3 mobo on either socket, Epox makes a great product for that. Overclocking on S754 warrants DFI's Lanparty, while S939 for now is lacking in board choice, and that same Epox would probably be your best OC bet on 939 for now (I see the MSI recommended a lot, but lots of people here seem to have a good amount of issues with their quality). For PCIe I have no idea.