Upgrade Time! Need some help from the pro's! :D

Where's the cpu?

I just edited that. It should work now.

If you can stretch to afford that Core 2 Duo I would stronly recommend!!!

I think that's about in his price range. Comes out to about £140.

Thanks for that, the thing is that im probably going to have to add a PSU aswell so that means I need a PSU / CPU / Mobo .

Is an Intel Core 2 Duo really worth that price? Is it better than an equal priced AMD?

If the core 2 duo is worth it, then I will go for a combination such as that but a motherboard that can accept AGP for the time being as well as PCI x16 would be even better!

EDIT: From looking at sites, PSU's prices are ok so it is basically the CPU and Motherboard.

Core 2 Duo's are definatley worth the money you pay for them!!

They are at this moment in time the best CPU's on the market and will out perform any AMD, Pentium 4 or Pentium D.

Even the slowest Core 2 Duo (E4300 1.8GHz) will be much faster than the fastest Pentium 4 or Pentium D. This is due to the unique way it processes its data.

Not to mention they are probably the most overclockable CPU's ever made!!!

The only problem with doing that is the fact that the X16 slot will be running at X8 speeds, or half the bandwidth.

It dosnt really matter as a 7950Gx2 dosnt use x8.

X2900XTX maybe? Does anything use the full bandwidth yet?

Oh thats good, I will go for Kitty's core 2 Duo but is there a motherboard available that can support the processor, DDR memory and AGP aswell as PCIx16?

I think there is, but it'll be quite rare, as people typically buy one or the other. Check on some popular online stores, and you may find it.

Here is one possibility: http://www.dabs.com/productview.asp...de=1&NavigationKey=11143,405070000,4294959853

That looks good but dabs.com didnt specify wheither it had an AGP and PCIx16 or not.

Plus on the Compatible Processors list it states:

Celeron D
Pentium 4
Pentium D
Pentium Extreme Edition

But no core duo?

That board's chipset doesn't support Core 2 Duo tho.

I search Newegg for stuff with AGP and PCI-e, that supported Core 2 processors, so that I could see what boards worked to search for them on a UK site. Nothing matched the search criteria, tho. You could probably get something with integrated graphics supporting Core 2, with only a PCI-e slot, so that you could use integrated until you save enough to buy a new graphx card.

Regards

Thanks for that Kitty, what about a Motherboard that can support Intel Core 2 Duo, DDR2 and has an AGP and PCI-E?

I might be able to stretch that little bit further and get some DDR2 as I have a friend who is selling some that I could get cheap

If such a motherboard exits, I will definetely buy it as that is perfect for my system

I can almost guarantee that most integrated graphic cards would be better than what you have right now, or match up in performance; they have come a long with now with things as high as a GeForce 6150 IGP, or the ATI Radeon X1400 IGP. I'm sure if you find one of those boards, you'll only really need PCI-e X16 for future upgrades.

Oh ok, I wasnt aware of that...Im used to hearing about Integrated Graphics being around the 64mb mark

Well if thats the case then that makes the search easier I guess!

Is DDR2 worth getting over DDR1?

If it is then im looking for a Intel Core 2 Dup supporting motherboard with DDR2 memory

I searched for one that did C2D and AGP+PCI-e and there was none (that Newegg had). But you could go with one that has integrated+PCI-e. I didn't think about that, but most integrated graphx (S3 excluded) should be as good as or better than your FX5200.

this board looks good.

Ah yes, the DS3 is a very nice board. And it is cheaper there (by a bit), comes out to just over $126 USD. Newegg has it for $132 I believe.

That is a nice board, exactly what I need but its a bit out of my price range im afraid...

Sorry for being so picky....but I cant mess this up you see