First of all I would like to thank this forum for helping me decide how to best spend my money on upgrades and the like.
I am not a high end gamer nor do I have the budget. Unfortunately, I have champagne tastes on a soda budget. :brokenheart: I read all articles from anandtech, tomshardware, and this forum concerning cpu's, videocards, and motherboards.
I realized with all this reading that pcie is becoming pcie2 and cpu's architecture was changing requiring new chipsets.
As you can see by my signature I am somewhat limited in what I can upgrade to.
So I decided to upgrade my cpu (single core-dual core) and videocard (6600GT-2600 Pro) and eventually jack up to 2 gigs of Ram so I can use this system for another year or two until pcie2 becomes part of mainstream and budget motherboards. And I will be able to upgrade to Windows Vista Ultimate once SP1 is released.
So far my new dual core cpu has improved the performance of my computer, and I just received my 2600 pro videocard last night and my DVDs look fantastic. The overall graphic look has greatly improved. I am sure my card is not the one to get if you want to play some of the latest and greatest pc games but for DVD watching I don't think there are many cards out there right now that could beat this card for the Agp platform.
The only thing left I would like to do as a major upgrade in the immediate future is buy a widescreen LCD. But that too must wait till I have the money for it. This is one area that one does not want to scrimp on.
So once again, thank you all those who posted the questions and the ones who were courteous enough to answer with revelent and accurate info.:thumbsup:
I hope this is ok to post in this spot, if not. Please post where appropiate.
I am not a high end gamer nor do I have the budget. Unfortunately, I have champagne tastes on a soda budget. :brokenheart: I read all articles from anandtech, tomshardware, and this forum concerning cpu's, videocards, and motherboards.
I realized with all this reading that pcie is becoming pcie2 and cpu's architecture was changing requiring new chipsets.
As you can see by my signature I am somewhat limited in what I can upgrade to.
So I decided to upgrade my cpu (single core-dual core) and videocard (6600GT-2600 Pro) and eventually jack up to 2 gigs of Ram so I can use this system for another year or two until pcie2 becomes part of mainstream and budget motherboards. And I will be able to upgrade to Windows Vista Ultimate once SP1 is released.
So far my new dual core cpu has improved the performance of my computer, and I just received my 2600 pro videocard last night and my DVDs look fantastic. The overall graphic look has greatly improved. I am sure my card is not the one to get if you want to play some of the latest and greatest pc games but for DVD watching I don't think there are many cards out there right now that could beat this card for the Agp platform.
The only thing left I would like to do as a major upgrade in the immediate future is buy a widescreen LCD. But that too must wait till I have the money for it. This is one area that one does not want to scrimp on.
So once again, thank you all those who posted the questions and the ones who were courteous enough to answer with revelent and accurate info.:thumbsup:
I hope this is ok to post in this spot, if not. Please post where appropiate.
