upgrade advice?

[Maezr]

my current system:

amd athlon xp 1700+
kg7-raid
nvidia geforce 4 mx 440
512 megs pc2100 ddr ram

all the rest is pretty crappy (soundcard, nic, etc, were all just spare parts I had lying around).

there are two seperate things I'd like to do:

1) upgrade my main system
2) get a second system to basically run a small personal webserver/and or just play around with linux on

what do you recommend I do?

how much would I look at spending for a new mb (prefer integrated stuff- usb2.0 a big plus, raid a big plus as I have 4 HDs + dvd-rw), a new cpu (amd), and ram? what boards would you recommend?

trying to stay as cheap as possible, so I really don't care about the newest ddr ram/best amd cpu out there, but just the best for my money... thanks

 

[Maezr]

.

 

[Maezr]

Okay, at this point I'm thinking I'll probably do this...

get a 333mhz board, with integrated usb2, nic, and sound. get an Athlon XP 2600 333 (should I pick something else? this seemed a good bang-for-the-buck-deal), and then some ram. I'd like 512 megs.

so two questions (hopefully this'll make it easier to answer).

1) what motherboard do you suggest that fits the above?
2) what speed ram do you recommend? trying to keep the price low

oh, and is that an okay choice for the cpu?

 

[Schadenfroh]

mobo
mobo has excellent nforce2 sound, integrated LAN, USB2, and a host of other features
RAM
1 stick now, down the road pick up another when ram prices go back down
4200
much better than that mx
2500 barton
and o/c the hell out of it, but skip the 2500 if you have a TbredB 1700

 

[StraightPipe]

gforce MX sucks butt

 

[Maezr]

what is a "tbredb"? how much of a difference will I notice going from the 1700+ to the 2600+ 333? what about from pc2100 ram to the pc2700?

how hard is it to unlock the xp cpus? would you recommend it if I've never done it before? how easy is it to screw up/ruin the cpu?

 

[Maezr]

bump

 

[modestninja]

I believe all the Xps are already unlocked. So there is no need to unlock them.

 

[Maezr]

my 1700 sure isn't unlocked.

 

[Maezr]

no one?

 

[ethebubbeth]

i think what modestninja is referring to is the fact that most kt400/kt600 and nforce2 motherboards are able to software unlock thourobred and barton core athlons through the bios. If i recall the kg-7 doesn't use any of those chipsets, so the only way to unlock it is to physically modify the cpu by closing the L1 bridges.

 

[Maezr]

all of the bartons are like this? do all nforce2 boards have this ability?

thanks for the suggestion, Schadenfroh. are there any boards similar to that, but with raid?