Upgrade Advice?

[imported_EmreNU]

Greetings,

I was wondering if I could get some advice on an upgrade that I'm interesting in pursuing. My current system vitals are the following:

2500+ Barton @ 2.0ghz
1Gb (2x256) Geil pc3200 @ 200mhz
Asus A7N8X
BFG 5900Ultra
Antec SmartPower 350W

I've been working on quieting my system so I figure I'll upgrade my vid card and cpu/mobo and install quieter HSFs on those instead of buying HSFs for fairly old hardware. I game fairly often so performance is important to me but I mostly use my computer for surfing/music/working and a quieter environment would be nice. I also live in a small dorm room so the computer noise is always audible.

My question is, if I want to purchase a pci-e mobo and athlon64 for a total of < $200, is it worth it (in terms of performance improvement and cost/benefit) to upgrade over the 2500+ @ 2.0ghz?

Thanks for reading,
Emre

 

[alimoalem]

yes...get the ASRock 939 (it has both AGP and PCI-e) for $70 so you can still use your 5900 or get a cheap mobo with onboard 6100. get the amd 3000+ for ur cpu

 

[Greenman]

I just went from a 2.2Ghz Barton to an Opteron 146 clocked at 2.7 Ghz. There is no detectable differance in games. Also, I'm not sure where you will find an A64 and a mother board for under $200.

 

[imported_EmreNU]

Originally posted by: Greenman
I just went from a 2.2Ghz Barton to an Opteron 146 clocked at 2.7 Ghz. There is no detectable differance in games. Also, I'm not sure where you will find an A64 and a mother board for under $200.

Perhaps I haven't done enough research to facilitate the <$200 stipulation so perhaps that is unreasonable.

Should I just get a better AGP card and call it a day? (I'm thinking 6800unlocked or x800xl/pro?)

 

[Arcanedeath]

I'd suggest an Asrock Dual SATA2 board and an A64 3000+ that should be around 200 then just upgrade the other parts as you can

 

[Arcanedeath]

The other option is the AGP X850XT from micro center for 199 AR over in hot deals but then you'd be cpu limited in most things.

 

[imported_EmreNU]

CPU limited, eh? Alright, I'll keep thinking then.