Upgrade Questions

Ive been considering upgrading a few parts on my PC. Right now my setup is:

CPU - AMD Athlon 64, 2200 MHz (11 x 200) 3500+ (Socket 939)
MoBo - MSI RS480M2/RX480M2 (MS-7093)
Grfx Crd - NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT (128 MB)
RAM - Corsair VS512MB400 x2 & Micron Tech. 8VDDT6464AG-40BDB x2 (2Ghz)

Now, its not the greatest in the world, but it plays most games at full resolution with little problem. Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142, Half Life 2 and F.E.A.R. all play rather well on the higher settings.

What Im thinking of doing is upgrading either my CPU to the 3700or 4000, upping my graphics card to a 7600GS .

The problem is, I dont know what will give me more bang for my buck. Ive heard the socket 939 isnt worth keeping anymore, but I really dont see it first hand. Is there any real reason why I should swap out my MB for something else? Would upping my CPU help my gameplay that much more, or would it be more on the Graphics Card? I cant up my RAM any more than I already have, but is there a different type I can get thatll give me an extra boost in performance?

I havent overclocked anything, it all runs stock straight from the box, and Im a little overly cautious of overclocking anything, afraid Ill do more harm than its ultimately worth.

Im just not sure what to do, and dont wanna waste money on something thats really not gonna help much. Ultimately when I save up some more money I will upgrade my MoBo to an SLI, and then run dual 7600s, but thats not for a little while at best. I appreciate any help in advance!

 

is kinda true in that AMD will stop making 939 chips by end of year. That doesn't stop people from trading used chips. And there are remaining stock at many stores. Also, 939 supports A64, X2, Opteron & FX.

Depends on the purpose of the pc. Multimedia (photo,a/v,etc.) will benefit from X2. Gaming is best with single core. The majority of games don't use multi cores.

You won't see much of a diff with the fastest single core a64 chip. Opteron & FX are worth it however. They have more cache & can overclock crazy.

You will see a difference with a faster 7900 series card. 7600GS isn't worth it, imo. What you should be saving up for is 7900GS factory overclocked, which performs like a stock 7900GT, for less. XFX, EVGA, BFG, take your pick.

Your 3500+ & DC 2gig ram are plenty for most games.

http://www.bfgtech.com/7900GS_256_PCIX.html

You will most likely need to upgrade your psu as well. Pick a cheap Sparkle/Fortron 450W at newegg.com

 

It's human nature to be scared of what we don't understand....

http://208.101.7.150/forums/showthread.php?t=52812

Learn, and we shall prosper!

 

I believe I have a 450w or 500w PSU, I had upgraded from a 350 because it wasnt working properly, so my current PSU should keep me going for a decent amount of time.

Basically right now Im pretty well off, and should hold out until I can upgrade to the 7900?

What about the socket type? I know no matter what Im sure Ill still be able to get a chip for it, itll just get a lil more harder, and if anything, maybe even cheaper, but should I worry about upgrading my motherboard to a newer chipset?

I forgot to add that the primary use for my computer is music/movie storage, and gaming. Originally I had thought about getting another 300gb HD, because Im at about 750gb right now, and wanted to be able to say TB instead of GB. No other reason really, considering I really havent really touched half the space I have right now, although I was thinking about getting an HD that spun at 10k for gaming, but didnt really see a difference when playing on my friends computer, which is pretty close to the setup I have, save for the fact that he has a P4.

 

A pc game usually loads everything into memory, & loads the next mission/level data when the current one is over. Console games may steam data from disks in the middle of a game. A pc game won't benefit much from a 10k raptor. For a server, yes. Especially, data server.

ATA133 & SATAI/II are plenty for pc games & multimedia storage.

Do you happen to do audio/video encoding/decoding? If so, X2 will help a lot. I have one & it takes a little more than half the time it used to take to do a video.

Open up the side panel & post the psu brand & model.

My sugguestion is the same: keep everything & upgrade the gpu when you have the money.