Which way to go on a new computer?

[Oz HArdHOusE]

[Yawgm0th]

Waiting a little while (a couple weeks I'd guess) for socket 939 processors and motherboards to come out in Australia would be the wisest choice. That would leave you with the best upgrading options, anyway. If you do that, here is what I would suggest:

A64 3500
Socket 939 mothrboard (wait utnil then, several will come out)
Radeon 9800 Pro

The problem with that is it will probably go at least $100 AU over your budget. Goingo for a motherboard that doesn't have a whole bunch of cool features (only what you need) might be best. You can certainly upgrade just the processor and motherboard and wait on the video. If you really wanted, you could get a 9600XT instead of the Pro, but the Pro is a better investment in my opinion.

Your RAM is fine. PC3200 XMS 768MB is quite good. You would have to replace that 256 MB stick with another XMS 512 for dual channel. That might be something to consider in the distant future.

If you were to upgrade your existing system in a way that didn't involve a socket 939 processor, just getting a new motherboard, processor and video card would be best. Get maybe an Athlon XP 3200, a Radeon 9800 Pro, a Gigabyte GA-7NNXP, and a 512MB stick to replace the 256MB for dual channel. That should fit in your budget and give you much better gaming performance. On top of that, if you want to upgrade the system in the future, you just rip the 9800 Pro and the 2 512MB sticks of RAM out and put them in your new system. Take your old card and your extra 256MB stick and throw it back in. That way, you would still have an old, low-end gaming system on top of a new, high-end one. The only think that becomes useless is the XP 2100 and its motherboard. You could throw those into a case with some RAM and call it an "office system" that would be used for word processing, web browsing, etc. That would be a cheap way to find use for them. You could just sell them for some extra cash, too.

[Oz HArdHOusE]

Thanks alot Yawgm0th,

The only thing im now thinking about is all doing an upgrade now really a waste of money as things are soon to change with pci-express and btx?

So lets say i just do a small upgrade now like more ram and a 9800 xt128 can i still use these two when all this new stuff comes out later this year?

and what is 939 motherboard will this have things like pci express on it?

Thanks again

[bigjackusa]

AMD says they will not adopt the BTX form factor. PCI-E is a wait and see in my opinion.

[Morgan_Lander]

Well, I've heard the BTX formfactor doesn't really work all that well for AMD cpus in the first place. 2nd of all it's partially coming out because of the heat issues with the Prescott core.

[Yawgm0th]

PCI-E is just a wait. It's not even an opinionated thing. There is currently no difference on any card between 4x AGP and 8x AGP. PCI-E will be useless for years to come. Don't worry about it or BTX.
Besides, there are AGP < PCI-E bridges that will allow you to use PCI-E cards in AGP slots. Like I said, all the cards are likely to have identical perforamance in most, if not all applications for quite a while. But even if they don't make new cards in AGP form, there are the bridges.

View this thread for more information regarding socket 939:

http://forums.tweaktown.com/viewtopic.php?t=18575

You could certainly just upgrade your video and RAM. Although that processor would probably hold back a 9800XT, it would still be a lot faster than what you have now. As long as the RAM is of => speed than your current RAM, more will also help performance quite a bit. A new processor and motherboard would help a lot more, but the RAM will help now and be useful later. The best use of your money would probably be a new card and more RAM, while waiting for socket 939 stuff and some more money. But you would still get quite a performance boost with the Athlon XP upgrade a described. That system wont be low-end for a year or two. so you could get that and wait a while to upgrade if you're impatient. Otherwise, get the card, RAM, and wait.