Originally posted by: BlingBlingArsch
imo it wasnt a good idea to upgrade with the 6800gt. The Cpu&Chipset is simply too old. The cheapest way at the moment would be a A64 3000+ occed to..2,5 if ur lucky. And yes i know that means spending money but i dont see any chance that the CPU will perform much better even when u overclock it. It seems P4 northwoods do not scale good when u overclock them, so no big perfomance gain :/.
Still u can give it a try, but dont use the Pentium Stock Cooler, cuz i think they are not made for overclocking, though P4 northwood do not get very hot, i had mine occed to 2,9Ghz at 45° while gaming (i just set the fsb to about 165 and there was still room for higher fsb...still performance increase wasnt even noticable *sigh*) If u wanna do it anyways and with ur stock cooler u can monitor ur temperatures with appz like
http://www.dvhardware.net/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=3
The new Uli chipset seems to be a good alternative to keep a current AGP card. It has a seperate pci-e system too so one can upgrade to an pcie card later. Asrock is the only manufacturer that comes to my mind offering a board with that chipset...ASRock 939Dual-SATA2, ULi M1695/M1567...for a measely 60$ worth a try. Anandtech and THG have both reviewed a board and seem to like it. So, id suggest a board with that Uli Chipset plus a A64 3000+ and a good hsf. Zalman, Thermalright, Arctic is cheap but can do the job too.