Possible upgrade

[Gunny04]

If for say I wanted to upgrade my current computer to a 64 bit CPU I would need probably, new ram, New video card, Definatly a new CPU, Heatsink fans and the sort, but would my old ram work because I just bought it and its PC2700 a bit on the slow side..... the reason I want to know is because of any extra money I get this summer if I get my own computer I'd like to have this one generally up to date and somewhat modern, But, I dont want to spend 500+ on an old HP..... I reckon it'd cost about 300 for a cheaper Motherboard/CPU and probably 100 for a decent graphics card but if I had to add ram to the equation bah! Would it really be worth it? or just go ahead and build my parents a whole new 700 dollar medium rig? specs below! Cheers, Gunny

[ctjoyce]

Well gunny this is going to hurt ya quite a bit. If your running a XP that means that its probibly a 754 socket, so your going to need a 939 board. A decent asus or gigabyte PCI-E board is going to be about $80 so thats not too bad. For 64Bit processers the whole Athalon famly is open (X64 series) however for now and the future the 3700+ or above cores are about the only way to go, but steer clear of the 3800s they arn't worth your time or money. Heatsink options on that are pretty open, but Zalman is completely the way to go with that.

For a decent vid card your going to need to expand the budget above $100. A mid stream 6600GT is $150 at the cheapest, and the 6800XT is about $185. Anything that is better than that your looking twards $250 or more.

On the RAM issue I feel your pain. I orrigionally got a PC2700 GeIL kit to hold me over until the XMS kit came back into stock, and I noticed the difference. A good kit of 2 512MB sticks will run you between $75 and $100. My kit cost me abot $90, but if you want the fastest latancy your looking at about $115.

Personally if I were you I would save up $1K and spend that on a decent rig. I recently built the one listed below for just over $940 with shipping.

AMD X64 3700+
ASUS 939, PCI-E
eVGA 7800GT PCI-E
Corsair XMS 1GB (the same kit I have)
WD 120GB SATA HDD
Samgsung DVD burner
Raidmax Scorpio 868 case.
Zalman CNPS-7000 Heatsink

However you could knock about $100 off that if you use the drives in your current comp. So I suggest you upgrade to something like that. Also with the $150+ you save useing your current case, drives, and OS you could look at a better processer (4000+) or better GPU (nVidia 7900GT)

Cheers
Cameron

[Gunny04]

thanks for the advice I might just build a decent computer in case mine (The one I want to build for myself costing 2500 or more) ever has a breakdown I can fall back onto another computer I will probably build mine first, then with what money I have left over will go into a new system, This one can be absolute backup I guess, prolly need to replace everything and start over because its all OEM (HP crap) cept the 80 dollar ram, 39.99 graphics card 25 dollar sound card a 19 dollar PSU and a 51 dollar 120 gig hard drive..... the only thing I am going to take is my 120 out, who knows, Lets see if I can find a job from april until october and have enough for a new system, just looking ahead! cheers, Gunny