Need Help Upgrading

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Hi. I just joined here today, hope you guys can help me figure out what to buy to upgrade!

Right now I have an AMD Athlon 3800+ Socket 939 in an MSI K8n-Neo4 Platinum SLI mobo (never used SLI... heh) with 1 gb of DDR-400 value ram and an 8800gts.

I figure I need to get a new mobo, processor, and ram. I want to spend less than $300 before rebates. I'm not afraid to overclock and plan to. I have some parts in mind already but I would like some feedback.

For a motherboard I'm looking at the Abit IP35-E. Is this a good board that will allow me to overclock well? Will I be able to run both my PATA hardrive and cdrom drive on the single PATA port? Also, will I be able to upgrade to the new Intel processors that come out next year, or will that require another new motherboard?

As for a processor, I've heard good things about the E2160 and E2180. Is it worth the $10 to get the 2180 instead of the 2160? Are there better CPUs out there at a similar price range? Also, how much can I expect these chips to overclock? Will I want to spend money on a separate heatsink and fan for them?

I need 2 gb of ram. I'm looking at this, this, or this maybe. Any other kits in this price range would work out too.

And finally, I need to know if all this will run with my 8800gts on my 500 watt Antec Basiq power supply. That should be powerful enough, right?

Thanks!
 
The ABit is a good board. The E2180 is worth $10 more... there are better cpu's out there, but they require a more expensive motherboard, and different memory.
The memory you posted is less expensive at www.zipzoomfly.com and shipping is free with no rebate hassel.
 
"And finally, I need to know if all this will run with my 8800gts on my 500 watt Antec Basiq power supply. That should be powerful enough, right?"

Your psu has 27amps.
Maybe, maybe not
 
Yes. that power supply is known to work well with that video graphics unit.
If you need affirmation, download one of the power supply/video graphics calculators.
 
Just a tip with the PSU calculator, if the result is close to 500 watts then it is recommended to upgrade to leave a little head room for times of large power usage. Some say this is unnessary unless you are using a generic PSU, but I believe otherwise.
cheers
Hynesy:wave:
 
Thanks for the help guys. I've decided to go withthis
for the ram. Also, can someone answer my question about the IDE drives? Will a DVD-RW run on the same channel as a hard drive or will I have to buy SATA drives?
 
Epif said:
Also, can someone answer my question about the IDE drives? Will a DVD-RW run on the same channel as a hard drive or will I have to buy SATA drives?
Why would you be worried about that? SATA drives cost the same as IDE ones anyways. Is there any other reason? In any case, if you make the DVD burner run as slave drive to the HDD's master, it will revert to PIO mode, which will give you abysmally slow burn and transfer speeds. So it's not advisable either way.
 
I already own the PATA stuff... that's why. I'd have to buy new SATA stuff then which costs $$$ heh... Thanks guys.
 
raybay said:
Yes. that power supply is known to work well with that video graphics unit.
If you need affirmation, download one of the power supply/video graphics calculators.
Thanks for the info. 1 amp would be too close for comfort for me (it being a Tier 3-maybe).
 
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