Advice needed

[Strag0]

I've seen from time to time posts on here about computer hardware and nearly everytime someone has offered really helpful advice. So I'm hoping the same will go for me.

I've been given the opportunity to buy some hardware from a friend for fairly cheap, however the hardware is semi-old I'm still unsure if it would be worth it. I mainly use this PC for gaming (not hardcore gaming though) and the setup I've got now is as follows:
Abit NF7-S Motherboard
AMD 2500+ Processor
1GB Ram
ATi Radeon 9800 pro 128mb

The hardware that I'm being offered are one of two processors: AMD 64 3500+ or AMD 64x2 3800+
Additionally, he'll give me two NVIDIA 6600GT PCI-E 128mb cards (for SLI). All for "under $100".

for me to do this though, I must buy a new motherboard and ram, the board I've been looking at is the " EVGA 122-M2-NF59-TR". I've not started to look for RAM, mostly because the whole "Timing" part confuses me.

So the advice I seek is which Processor would be best to have, and if the "upgrade" would be worth the money? As I said, I'm not looking for a super high-end machine, but something that will hold me over for 3-4 years like this machine has. I've done some readings on the hardware offered, but as usual haven't found any of it super helpful.

I appreciate it!

 

[hanman]

go for the athlon 64 x2. that plus two 6600GTs is DEFINATELY worth 100 bucks. Asus makes a really good nforce4 sli motherboard. i think the model number is A8N-SLI Deluxe. I'd suggest at least 1GB of RAM (two 512MB sticks), but 2GB would be MUCH better, especially when (not if) you have to upgrade to Vista (or switch to Linux

).

 

[Darkforce]

It's a very good buy for the money, if I was you I'd probably go for it - it'll definately be a big step up from your current setup. Go for the 64x2 3800+. Just budget yourself around $100 or so for an AM2 (i presume?) sli board and $50-125 for 1-2GB of DDR2 memory. You've not mentioned what power supply you have in your current machine but if running an sli configuration you'll need something half decent like a 450w+ psu so expect to spend around $50 on that.

 

[Strag0]

It's a very good buy for the money, if I was you I'd probably go for it - it'll definately be a big step up from your current setup. Go for the 64x2 3800+. Just budget yourself around $100 or so for an AM2 (i presume?) sli board and $50-125 for 1-2GB of DDR2 memory. You've not mentioned what power supply you have in your current machine but if running an sli configuration you'll need something half decent like a 450w+ psu so expect to spend around $50 on that.

The SLi board I was looking at was $130 with a $30 rebate, so I was lucking out on it... it seems to be a decent board (I've always used ASUS so it'll be a change for me.) My current PSU is a Thermaltake Power 420W, do you think that'll be enough? I sure hope it is, as of right now I've got $400 to spend on this machine. Then again, I can always buy and save the parts until I can piece the rest of it together, but that would be a pain.

Thanks though for the speedy reply.

 

[Strag0]

go for the athlon 64 x2. that plus two 6600GTs is DEFINATELY worth 100 bucks. Asus makes a really good nforce4 sli motherboard. i think the model number is A8N-SLI Deluxe. I'd suggest at least 1GB of RAM (two 512MB sticks), but 2GB would be MUCH better, especially when (not if) you have to upgrade to Vista (or switch to Linux

).

I looked for the A8N-SLI and Newegg didn't seem to have it, I think I might go with the EVGA since it's cheap and looks like it can last me a bit. I did however find the specs for the A8N and apparently it uses DDR ram rather than DDR2... thats a good thing for me money wise since I've got 1gig of Kingston Hyper X DDR ram that cost me a fortune when I bought it.

Thanks for such a speedy response, I was expecting at least a days wait.

 

[Darkforce]

Yeah that Thermal Take PSU should be good enough I would have thought, TT make decent stable PSUs and it has dual +12v rails so it should power everything fine. At the end of the day if you find it isn't powerful enough you could always chuck something beefier in there though you should be okay.

Regarding the mobo just find a board in your price range, make sure it's the right socket and check out some reviews...

Edit: BTW... the only A8N boards I can see on newegg are 939 socket boards whereas the EVGA is an AM2 socket, so what do you actually need?

 

[Strag0]

Yeah that Thermal Take PSU should be good enough I would have thought, TT make decent stable PSUs and it has dual +12v rails so it should power everything fine. At the end of the day if you find it isn't powerful enough you could always chuck something beefier in there though you should be okay.

Regarding the mobo just find a board in your price range, make sure it's the right socket and check out some reviews...

Edit: BTW... the only A8N boards I can see on newegg are 939 socket boards whereas the EVGA is an AM2 socket, so what do you actually need?

Excellent!

I'll need an AM2 if I get the 3800+.

I appreciate the information, now to go and find some decent RAM and order my parts.

 

[pikachucrackpipe]

how hardcore is your gaming? and are you a moneybags?
you could get a quad x64 processor with like 4 gigs of ram and quad sli (if its out yet) or dual sli

 

[hanman]

quad sli is out, but the tests/reviews i've seen showed little or no improvement over dual sli. the bottleneck is at the CPU before 4 GPUs can be harnessed.