Advice on cost effective upgrade

sharingan

Well, I am thinking that my ASUS A7N8X + AMD Barton 2800 + ATI 9800 Pro need a bit of a speed injection. A CPU thermal problem has me underclockign the chip, but I think I need to do more than just solve that.

I was hoping to just put the best chip I can into it (be a cheapskate), get a good HSF and another stick of RAM, but ATX standards have changed what with PCI-X and all, and it appears that the Socket A is now some old fossil reserved for bargain basement chips.

So basically I need a mobo that gets me into good socket territory (whatever that is now), has all the connectivity I am used to (on board 4xUSB 2.0, at least one PCI slot, 2xSATA, on board firewire, 2xIDE).

It also needs to have some chip headroom so that I can squeeze out a chip upgrade if I need to down the line.

The biggest thing is that I want to hang onto my AGP graphics card for the time being, but I want the option of a being able to install a PCI-X one down the road too.

Those kind of connectivity options seem to wipe out a lot of solutions for me, as hybrid PCI-X/AGP seems pretty rare.

Any ideas? Not interested in spending a whole lot, as this is kind of an unplanned upgrade (hence I want to hang onto the AGP card which has some life in it yet).

I could just go for a trailing edge upgrade, last years tech on the cheap, with no real upgrade options (AGP + connectity + can take somethign in the 3700 range) stuff is changing too much for future proofing to really work out properly.

zerodown

Indeed technology is moving fast. I built mine for 2 grand about 4 months ago using amd64 4000 and Nvidia gefore 600 256mb graphics and already i was forced to overclock to compete with the New FX-55.

A decent motherboard will cost you 80-90 euro.

Chip-wise try stick with socket 939 if at all possible, if you want to keep in the game and not blow a hole in your pocket try a
[HTML]http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=312583[/HTML]

or stick with the older socket

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=302513

if you would tell me your budget and case or cpu specs id be glad to help

SouperComputer

what about getting a good cooler like a thermalright XP120 and overlocking? The barton cores usually clock very high. 3500 would be achiveable id say. Do you need more power for games?

Might get you out of a hole until AM2 filters through and the new intel setup arrives.

astrofool

I'd go with what Souper says, and get the mobo/chip/gfx/ram bundle all at once as an upgrade, which may also require a new PSU, and maybe new case depending on the thermals of the old one

I'd say if you got a good hs/fan and got it back to stock at least, and waited out the couple of months to get a proper upgrade kitty together. And yes it is annoying not to be able to take RAM/gfx across to the new platform, but probably worth it in the long run.

sharingan

Overclocking isn't really my thing. Besides my machine has had a whole host of thermal problems already even when the HSF was pretty damn good. Or at least it was up to a point.

I suspect the vertical orientation of the mobo wasn't ideal for a 600g HSF. Theres a possiblity that my HSF socket clips have become bent and it is not making an ideal thermal bond with the chip. Basically my Barton would have been running at close to or over 100C for a long time before problems started to be noticed. This has probably dragged down the OC ceiling. But really theres no way I am dealing with thermal issues going into summer.

Case thermals are fine - I have 2 more fan mounting slots, but they do jack for environmental thermals - the room gets warm.

Whatever board I get, AGP & firewire are hard requirements, so that rules out the board suggestions so far. The case is a big Chieftec, its pretty roomy inside and the A7N8X isn't a small board. PSU is 360W.

I don't want to get into another graphics card race again, which is why I want to keep the 9800 Pro. Its plenty good enough for the games I play, and I cant see much gaming happening over the summer to warrant spending a lot of money on new gfx card that will be half price by xmas.

If I am going new board & chip, I would like to keep it as low as possible if I can, if its just a quick fix. For a serious upgrade I would like to keep it to €500. I can spend more but dont see the point throwing away money like that - I do my main PC building in autumn/winter generally.