Need MB, CPU and Vid card $500+

M

maw

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Sep 27, 2000
Messages
4,135
Hi all,
sorry, i know this gets asked a lot, but hopefully some of you just love to pick hardware for other people :)

It's been over 2 years now, and i'm ready for an upgrade, and honestly haven't been up on the fine details of the latest and greatest.
Currently I have:
Abit IS7 mobo
P4 2.4C @ 2.8Mhz
2 Gigs PC3500 DDR
ATI 9800PRO AGP
250GB Maxtor HDD (16MB cache)

My budget is $500, but can go as high as $550 if the difference in price means a significant difference in performance.

What it's used for:
I hardly game much anymore, and when i do it's mostly RTS games (like C&C Generals). I do a LOT of web design and development as well as digital photography, so I use Photoshop and Dreamweaver extensively and often have multiple browsers open for site testing. I run dual LCD's at 1280x1024 and am satisfied with that resolution.

I figured I could save a lot if I reuse my 2GB of DDR (4x512) PC3500, but it looks like this limits me to AMD mobo's only? I really don't care about brand loyalty, so AMD or Intel is fine, just whichever is the best bang for the buck. Since AGP is on it's way out, I'll need a decent PCI-X vid card that can handle the occassional game.

Stability is preferrable to overclocking potential, but being able to push the system a little bit would be welcome, I just don't plan on doing any insane overclocking (those days are over for me :( ), since i use the system mostly for work.

So, if anyone has any recommendations, I'd really appreciate it.
 
DejaWiz said:
GPU: AOpen 6600 PCIe $84

MOTHERBOARD: EPoX EP-9NPA+ Ultra $105 or ABIT AN8 $98

CPU: AMD X2 3800+ $347

Perfect system for photo and web work and below the $550 max mark. ;)

What PSU are you using? What are the amps on the +12V rail?
Click to expand...


thanks, i'll look into those. As for P.S. i have an Allied 500W. I'll have to check the rails later. BTW, would it be worth it to spend the extra bucks get a 6600GT? while i don't game much, those few times that i do, would the 6600 be able to keep up?
 
PCI-X = server 64-bit pci slots.

PCI-e (what you're referring to) is the new standard for 32-bit PCI slots.
 
Project_2501 said:
PCI-X = server 64-bit pci slots.

PCI-e (what you're referring to) is the new standard for 32-bit PCI slots.
Click to expand...

doh! i'm such a dumbass.. no idea why i typed X intead of e
 
Answer to the vid card question: It might be worth it, depending on what games you play.

As for the PSU: Allied = :(

You might want to seriously consider getting another psu with a better reliability reputation to keep all your new parts nice and safe.
 
yeah, it looks like the 6600GT is worth the extra bucks over the regular 6600.

as for the P.S., i know Allied is "supposed" to suck, but i haven't had any problems at all with mine, my current system is rock solid (except for when i tinkered with the RAM timings and FSB settings a few months back). Hardware Doctor reports 11.92 - 11.98V on the 12V rail during regular use. In fact, all the voltage readings are between 1-2% of where they should be. I'm going to assume this should be good enough for a dual-core system that i don't plan on overclocking much. But correct me if i'm wrong.

thanks for the help with this, it's amazing how quickly you fall behind when you miss a couple of upgrade cycles!!
 
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