Hoping to seek the wisdom of the computer people lurking around here...



I need to upgrade the CPU, motherboard, and RAM in my system... currently running a slow ass 1.5 GHz pentium 4 with 700ish MB of RAM. I have an Antec mid tower case with a 350w power supply to work with, hopefully it is adequate...



I am thinking a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, but I am having trouble finding a motherboard that has more than one IDE connector. I was thinking a [font=Verdana]GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX All Solid Capacitor Intel Motherboard - Retail[/font], but that would mean I would have to buy a SATA HD and optical drive?


Also, any ideas on a good video card in the $200 price range?

I think the GeForce GT8600's are kind of the sweet spot for graphic cards.

I'm in the same position as you -- the computer is too old to upgrade parts, it's time for a whole new one. I believe going whole-hog and picking up a non-legacy motherboard is the way to go. For another $30 you can get a hard-drive enclosure for your old IDE drives, and use that for backups.

Or you could buy a PCI adapter card, and hook up your IDE drives that way.


350w is going to be a bit on the low end. Make sure it has connectors for the new parts. I build a Core 2 Duo system for my brother, and it had this weird seperate power connector for the CPU, and extra connectors for the graphics cards. I have no idea if that's just an Intel thing, or the new rage. (I'm pretty sure the graphics card bit is the new rage).

Nvidia Geforce GT8600's are i think $180 something at bestbuy at the moment.

Xiantus

Nvidia Geforce GT8600's are i think $180 something at bestbuy at the moment.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150258

With free 3-day buisness shipping, and a mail in rebate to boot, you can get it for overall 1/2 less at Newegg.

I found a GT8600 512 MB for $113 on TigerDirect, I think I'm going with that. My main concern is finding a quality (inexpensive) motherboard and RAM. It's really not in my budget to buy new SATA HDs and disk drives (or a power suply) right at the moment, so I'll have to work my way around somehow... maybe sacrifice having a disk drive at all and just run off of my IDE HD until I can afford a SATA HD.


Not looking for the ultimate gaming machine, but I want enough power to at least reasonably run Crysis and run HL2 at full settings.

You won't be able to run Crysis on high. Sorry.

I have an 8800 GTX, a raptor HD, and a quad core, and I run it on medium. HL2 will probably run quite well, though.

Spring for the 8800 GT if at all possible. It's around $240 but is all the rage. Bang for you buck, this is by far the best choice.

You should try to get ahold of Morgan for computer advice. He saved me mucho dolores.

Oh, I didn't mean to group Crysis and HL2 together... I'll settle for getting Crysis to run at all. But I want to max out HL2.


I find it interesting that you guys are all about the GeForce, I had always heard that the ATI Radeons were the better card.

They were a few years ago. Nvidia bested ATI a while back and have been the champs since.

You do realize that, by normal powers of nature, no system made yet (aside from those it was made on) has been able to play Crysis on high? It's an abomination of graphics hogging that has taken the world by surprise. Just what we need, more high quality graphics to suck the power out of our GPUs, and the money out of our wallets.

Sorry, go on now.

I was thinking about getting an NVIDIA 8600GT for my new computer, however, I've heard that one of the games I want to play, American Conquest: Divided Nation, has performance issues with the 8000-series of cards.

So I'm also looking into the newer ATI series as well.