[aznmidude]

What it's got now:

Kingwin ATX Midtower Case KT-424-BK-WM
AMD Athlon XP 2800+ Barton 2.08Ghz (Although it's only running at 1.24ghz now... =/)
Antec TRUE380 380W ATX PS
ASUS A7N8X-X 462(A) nForce2 400 ATX AMD mobo
Corsair XMS 512mb ram SDRAM DDR 333 (PC 2700); another 512mb stick DDR 400 (PC3200) i think... but total 1gb
ATI Radeon 9800pro
5.1 Surround sound PCI card
2 DVD drives
a 40gig maxtor hdd

I built this a loonggg time ago, about 5 years ago. I'm looking to do some quick, efficient, yet long lasting upgrade. I use this system to play games and other misc entertainment. I don't want the top notch stuff, so I'm looking for the most cost efficient upgrades. I hope to play future games like starcraft 2 and diablo 3. (which i know will demand pretty high end systems) Is my video card sufficient for another few years?

Is it possible to just make a mobo, cpu, ram upgrade? Would I have to upgrade my PS too? Thanks in advance!

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[aznmidude]

bump

[PedroDaGR8]

What it's got now:

Kingwin ATX Midtower Case KT-424-BK-WM
AMD Athlon XP 2800+ Barton 2.08Ghz (Although it's only running at 1.24ghz now... =/)
Antec TRUE380 380W ATX PS
ASUS A7N8X-X 462(A) nForce2 400 ATX AMD mobo
Corsair XMS 512mb ram SDRAM DDR 333 (PC 2700); another 512mb stick DDR 400 (PC3200) i think... but total 1gb
ATI Radeon 9800pro
5.1 Surround sound PCI card
2 DVD drives
a 40gig maxtor hdd

I built this a loonggg time ago, about 5 years ago. I'm looking to do some quick, efficient, yet long lasting upgrade. I use this system to play games and other misc entertainment. I don't want the top notch stuff, so I'm looking for the most cost efficient upgrades. I hope to play future games like starcraft 2 and diablo 3. (which i know will demand pretty high end systems) Is my video card sufficient for another few years?

Is it possible to just make a mobo, cpu, ram upgrade? Would I have to upgrade my PS too? Thanks in advance!

Your video card will be the problem for just a mobo,cpu ram upgrade. Your videocard is AGP and all modern mobo's use PCIex16, even the cheap ones. As for a PSU, it is by FAR the lowest I would go for a new system. You will be running your PSU at a high utility at all times, so you won't have much headroom for any add-ons for the future.

[aznmidude]

Hmm, so what you're saying is pretty much I can't salvage much of anything here... I can keep my ATX case and drives though right?

Can you recommend some stuff (mobo, cpu, vid card, and how many watt PS)? Is it possible to get decently good stuff with a budget of $500?

Edited by aznmidude, 12 December 2008 - 11:49 AM.

[=OSS*ROID=]

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819115132 - CPU

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813131347 - Motherboard

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814130384 - Graphics card

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817139004 - PSU

All this adds up to $445. There are also a couple mail-in-rebates which would bring the price down to $385.

Cheers
ROIDO

Edited by =OSS*ROID=, 15 December 2008 - 07:54 AM.

[aznmidude]

Thanks for the nice looking recommendations. Few quick q's: with this setup, am I going to be able to run all new games smoothly? Is it possible to tell if in the future I want another upgrade, that these will be able to last longer than my current setup? (ie: if i get a higher wattage/newer PSU, will it last me longer?)

Finally, a sort of side question, I'm looking to connect my laptop, or perhaps the desktop, up to an LCD-tv or plasma as well. Which cable would give me the best quality? I tried a simple vga-vga cable and it worked pretty good i guess, but I've heard that if you use a vga-HDMI or maybe DVI that you will get better quality. Can anyone shed some light on this, thanks!

[=OSS*ROID=]

with this setup, am I going to be able to run all new games smoothly?

Yes you will be able to. This card is able to play Crysis on high settings, so basically, it can play any game.

Is it possible to tell if in the future I want another upgrade, that these will be able to last longer than my current setup? (ie: if i get a higher wattage/newer PSU, will it last me longer?)

The products selected will last a very long time. The motherboard also has support for the Quad-core cpus incase you want to upgrade to one of them in the future. But yes, these products will last a very long time. Concerning the powersupply. This powersupply is a perfect fit for these parts. Corsair is a very good brand and they are very reliable and stable components. You may want to look into this one if you plan on getting a quad-core and a newer graphics card (ie. the GTX 280 or Radeon 4870 X2) http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817139005

Which cable would give me the best quality?

VGA-HDMI adapter. DVI and HDMI provide the same picture quality, but the reason I would choose HDMI over DVI is because it can carry sound better, so the sound will be a lot better if you are using HDMI.

Goodluck with everything!

Cheers
ROIDO

Edited by =OSS*ROID=, 15 December 2008 - 08:08 AM.

[PedroDaGR8]

Thanks for the nice looking recommendations. Few quick q's: with this setup, am I going to be able to run all new games smoothly? Is it possible to tell if in the future I want another upgrade, that these will be able to last longer than my current setup? (ie: if i get a higher wattage/newer PSU, will it last me longer?)

Finally, a sort of side question, I'm looking to connect my laptop, or perhaps the desktop, up to an LCD-tv or plasma as well. Which cable would give me the best quality? I tried a simple vga-vga cable and it worked pretty good i guess, but I've heard that if you use a vga-HDMI or maybe DVI that you will get better quality. Can anyone shed some light on this, thanks!

Those are EXCELLENT recommendations ROID, nice choice on each piece. The PSU is good quality, same with the video card, etc. As for all games, they should all go smoothly though some may not be at the highest settins (one for example Crysis tends to strain ALL systems new and old).
As for your second question, VGA in and of itself doesn't have the bandwidth to get a decent picture. Also, these would have to be converters as DVI and HDMI are digital signals and VGA is analogue. If you are set on this then you would want HDMI because it has the highest digital bandwidth so it can easily support the highest resolutions.

[=OSS*ROID=]

Crysis tends to strain ALL systems new and old).

lol, i know right. I really want to know what system they used to test Crysis because they clearly should have seen that the game puts A LOT of stress on your system.

[PedroDaGR8]

Crysis tends to strain ALL systems new and old).

lol, i know right. I really want to know what system they used to test Crysis because they clearly should have seen that the game puts A LOT of stress on your system.

The supercomputer at Los Alamos

[=OSS*ROID=]

^^

Edited by =OSS*ROID=, 15 December 2008 - 09:21 AM.

[aznmidude]

Nice, thanks for the help guys. I just ordered that stuff (opted for the 650W PSU though) off newegg. Picked up some OCZ ram as well, and i think the final tag, (with bonus 15% off today! or just $50) I think it ended up costing me around 385 total for everything. Hopefully everything works well when it gets here! Thanks for all the help!

[PedroDaGR8]

Nice, thanks for the help guys. I just ordered that stuff (opted for the 650W PSU though) off newegg. Picked up some OCZ ram as well, and i think the final tag, (with bonus 15% off today! or just $50) I think it ended up costing me around 385 total for everything. Hopefully everything works well when it gets here! Thanks for all the help!

Congrads man. I hope you thoroughly enjoy your build (I assume you are talking about that killer Corsair 650 watt for 70ish after rebate. Looks like you picked up some quality stuff for quite cheap.

Of course if you run into any problems getting it all setup, come on back here and ask us.

[=OSS*ROID=]

Nice, thanks for the help guys. I just ordered that stuff (opted for the 650W PSU though) off newegg. Picked up some OCZ ram as well, and i think the final tag, (with bonus 15% off today! or just $50) I think it ended up costing me around 385 total for everything. Hopefully everything works well when it gets here! Thanks for all the help!

Hey that's great man! Goodluck with the build. If you need any help with anything else, feel free to visit us again!

Cheers
ROIDO

[aznmidude]

Wow, just my luck. I finally received my parts today and opened them up to check em out. I open my mobo box to find what looks like a capacitor, rolling around on the mobo itself... Sheesh, first the parts come 1.5 weeks late, and now this... =/ This is probably a dumb question, but I gotta return it and there's no way to run it even when a single capacitor has fallen off, right?