Another Help With Upgrade Post

Greetings once again Geeks.

I made a previous post about upgrading from an AMD 4000+. I was going to do a possible CPU swap. But, I might just rebuild. Bigger, faster, stronger . . . So of course I need advice.

My current rig is an AMD 4000+ (slightly over clocked to 4200) mounted on a Asus A8N-E motherboard with 1 gig of ram and a BFG 7900 OC video card.

I am looking to spend maybe $150-175 for a CPU. I want an AMD, dual-core. That seems to be the price for X2 5600's. For a mobo I would like to spend somewhere around $130. Not sure about ram prices, but I understand they are pretty cheap. So, a moderately priced 2 gigs of ram would do nicely. As for video, not top shelf, but something faster than my current BFG 7900 OC.

I don't need bleeding edge hardware. Although I will do only minor oc'ing if any, I would like a motherboard with with some nice BIOS features. For the record, I like my ASUS board.

Or, would I be happy slapping an X2 5600 in my current board, upgrading the ram, and buying a new video card? Would I see that much of difference with a newer motherboard? In my last post someone made mention of upgrading the other components, which makes sense. Or would I come up short in the scenario.

So, can anyone recommend a good AMD CPU Mobo combo for me based on my price point? I have not done any formal research yet for prices, I am just beginning to formulate things in my head.

Thanks for any help.

 

Have you considered switching to the Dark Side... Intel I mean.

Nice Gigabyte board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128059R $69

Quad Core CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017 $255

Decent PCI video card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102715 $169 (hey, free t-shirt.)

2GB RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146699 $54

Just something to look into. If you want to go budget, how 'bout this dual core CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115029 $189

Good luck with the upgrade! Always fun to build a new 'puter!

E

 

Fred_G -

For some reason I remain true to AMD. I have used them in all of my builds over the past 10 years or so. Not sure why, maybe I like the underdog and I have become both comfortable and familiar with them. I don't think AMD is better or worse, and Intel makes great stuff, that is just how I feel. And I could go either way with a video card - my last card was an ATI X800 and I have a humble X200M in my laptop. My current card is an Nvidia. That card rocks for the money. At the time I bought ATI could not come anywhere near price/performance. I came by the card by circumstance; the ATI card I had originally ordered was out of stock.

The quad core is out of my price range. I might get a quad core in the next few years for my next build though, I am usually a bit behind in the race to the edge of technology. Thanks for the suggestions though.

Newegg rocks.

 

Buy what you want. I used to be an AMD fanboy. If you are going to stick with DDR RAM, you can get some nice stuff.

I love my Quad core. And it is not too far out of your price range...

Have fun with it, new builds are always fun.

E