Recommendation on new Mobo/CPU combo

[beerabuser30]

I'd like to get a new motherboard and a new CPU. My old stuff is just not cutting it anymore. However I have very little money so I would like to replace these first then gradually replace everything else. I currently have a radeon x700 pci-e graphics card, 1 sata drive, 3 ide hard drives, a whole bunch of miscellaneous usb things, an ide disk drive and 4 512 sticks of ram. I ran cpuz to find out more on my ram and all I could find was that it is ddr in dual channels. I am also running windows xp. I have a 500w power supply. I prefer AMD processors and ASUS boards. I have been looking at some of the new quad core amds at newegg that seem to run about 200. Anyone use those? And would they recommend them? Does anyone have any advice for what I could get and keep all my other things?

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Expect to buy new RAM as well, considering the fact that DDR was phased out years ago. What PSU do you currently have? What is your budget?

 

[beerabuser30]

Its just an antec 500w. Nothing special. I was hoping to avoid buying new ram. I was planning on spending about 200 on chip and 200 on board but if I have to get new ram I may just end up waiting a little while.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

You could definitely pull a new CPU/RAM/motherboard off with $400.

MSI K9A2 Platinum $154.99
Athlon 64 X2 6000+ $153.00
Crucial Ballistix 2 x 1024MB DDR2 1066MHz $64.99 (After MIR)

Total (before shipping): $372.92

You could even go cheaper than that by quite a bit if you wanted.

 

[beerabuser30]

Thanks I might be putting an order in for exactly that shortly.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

The only thing that I would recommend is to purchase a PCI card with a few ATA host adapters otherwise you'll be in a pinch with all of your drives.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ion=pci controller card&bop=And&Order=REVIEWS