Upgrade Advice please!

[Tanveryen]

Hi all, I'm new to this forum so apologies if I am going over old ground here.

I currently own the following computer, bought in 2001 and I have upgraded bits and peices as I went, all thats left from the original spec is the CPU / Heatsink and fan!!

Pentium 4HT, 3.06mhz 533FSB
ASRock P4V88+ Mobo
2gb PC3200 DDR Ram (4x512mb dual)
160gb ATA
250gb ATA
320gb SATA
Sapphire X800XT 256mb Video Card
DVD-RW
DVD Rom
XP-Home SP2

I use the machine for a whole gambit of things, all leisure related, i.e. its not my workstation. But mostly for gaming and messing about with media.

I have a budget of around £300 depending on what I need to replace and what I can get for selling the existing components, and want to know, in your learned opinions, which items I should concentrate on replacing?

The new system will need to be upgradable in the future and preferable have the ability to run Vista.

Unfortunately any Video Card upgrade now seems limited to PCI-E so I am pretty much resigned to the belief that I need to change my mobo, so might aswell go the whole hog and get one thats future proof, get a decent CPU, with the option to upgrade again as it becomes affordable?

Any advice will be gratefully received, if you need to know anything further let me know!

Thanks in advance.

Tim.

 

[muckshifter]

Hi all, I'm new to this forum so apologies if I am going over old ground here.

... that's ok, you ain't the first, and I'm sure you won't be the last.

I did warn the young Lady I would do this, so ...

Have a quick look Here ... it tends to go off on tangents, but the juice of it is all there.

I just been looking for someone to ask your question ... so, by all means post your thoughts here in this thread.

You is gonna need around £600-£800 but some corners can be cut, initially.

 

[Abarbarian]

You should consider selling the mobo and cpu and possibly the ATA hard drive along with the XP operating system , that way you'l get some money for the XP as on its own its worthless . The graphics card should raise you some useful cash as they are making silly money on e-bay . If your going to sell on e-bay consider putting some screen shots from something like Everset to show that the items are from a working system .

 

[Tanveryen]

Thanks Abarbarian,I hadn't hought of selling my old ATA drive with the OEM XP on for more sponds. As you say ifs fit for the bin otherwise, will give me some cash to my Vista Budget, tho it was my intention to delay getting Vista until they had sorted out all the drivers for it.

I'm opting for if the price is right...

P5B Deluxe c£100.00
E6600 c£150.00
8800 GTS 320mb c£170.00
2gb Crucial Ram 5-5-5-15 c100.00

Half decent for £520, sale of current kit should just about bridge the financial gap, just need to look at my current cooling as it is begging to be overclocked!

Thanks for input most useful.