what to buy

[nee622]

My old pIII 450mhz just doesn't cut it anymore, and i'm looking to upgrade my computer. I've been looking into current and upcomping mobo's/cpu's and frankly i have no idea whether to wait a couple more weeks for the 800mhz, and buy a 2.8/3.06, or if it would be worth it to wait for the new Prescott by intel that is supposed to be coming up.
I'm also wondering if the p4 2.8/3.06 is worth the cash, or are the differences barely noticeable, if i were to go with an AMD, by barely noticeable i mean by a few fps'. If i were to go amd, i would buy an asus A7N8X, and for intel, a Gigabyte SINXP1394. I have a pricerange between 500-700, i'd prefer to stay around 500, if going higher only gives me a small small boost.

 

[Budmantom]

What do you have now that you plan to re-use?

If you want to stay arounf $500 don't bother talking about a 2.8ghz cpu that alone is $299 and the 3ghz is $380plus you will also need a good mb $100plus and $100plus now you have spent $500 and you have no video card etc...

Your best bet might be an Xp1700/2100 system.

 

[Jeff7181]

See my sig...

What do you NEED the computer for? What do you WANT it to do?

 

[human2k]

Asus A7N8X 2.0 Revision - $140
Athlon XP 1700 0310WMP Stepping -$72
SLKL800A + 80MM Fan of your choice -$35
Kingston Hyper-X PC3000 512MB x 2 - $170 ($85 x 2)
ATI Radeon 9500 OEM PRO 128mb $172 from mwave.com


Get the board combo from excaliberpc.com, you get like a $12-15 discount. THe 0310 steppings are hot stuff, 2.4-2.5ghz on air. The 9500 PRO is the best bang for the buck. Just add a decent hard drive, case w/PSU, and optical drives and you're set.

 

[nee622]

I'm sorry i prob. should have stated this, or made it clearer, i meant to spend 500 for a cpu/mobo alone, and i will mostly be using it for gaming. However when i am actually using the computer, for things besides gaming, i tend to have a lot of programs/files open at once. I am mainly looking for just mobo/cpu comments, however other ideas on what i should get, i.e. ram, would be helpful, i currently have a geforce 3 ti-500 and a 200gb hard drive, so not much to worry about there; unless a new graphics card would make tha tmuch of a difference. Besides that i will prob. scrap everything into a cheap server for my lan.
Thanks for the help

 

[Corporate Thug]

like human2k said, u can get a mobo, 1700+, and HSF for $200. and you should prolly use some of the money that is left over to buy a new video card and some ram. $500 is to much to drop on a mobo and cpu