Is it time to go PCI-E?

Hi,

Just looking for some advice, I think I'm in the right place.

Thanks to a recent post in the bargains forum I'm now the proud owner of a 24" Widescreen Dell monitor. This now means that my 256Mb X850XT can't really handle the 1920x1200 resolutions (rather worryingly, the GPU keeps crashing too, though it was doing this before too - it happens randomly, maybe RAM issues? Anyway...). I play Battlefield 2, CS, C&C3, I would sample some newer games if my computer were up to it.

The rest of my system includes a DFI Lanparty Pro 875B, 1Gb budget corsair (DDR1) and a 3Ghz P4 (478) @ 3.5Ghz. Ideally I'd like to upgrade to a Core 2 Duo and and buy an 8800 graphics, but money is a little tight.

I was thinking of investing in an 512Mb X1950Pro / XT AGP for around £120....

Would this be a silly investment? Is the performance likely to become CPU limited? Should I just bite the bullet and buy a new MB, Core 2 duo, Ram and Graphics...I suppose I could make a bit of cash back with Ebay. Just some thoughts would be good...

Cheers!

I just built a PCIe system after putting up with AGP for years, it was more than worth the investment.

Depends on how much bullet you can afford to bite :)

An Asrock Dual VSTA motherboard would allow you to run 2 sticks of your old DDR ram, but won't take your existing CPU so that still needs replacing.

High end AGP cards seem just too expensive now, so I am trying to avoid spending any money on AGP kit these days.

Do you have a budget in mind? We always like spending other people's money on here if you give us enough info to do so :D

Well, my credit card company would have me believe I can afford to bite missiles... :mrgreen:

I'm the sort of person that if I was going to upgrade, I'd have to make it worthwhile and do it properly. So a hybrid motherboard wouldn't really sit too well with me. I know that the Core 2 Duos have had a good drop in price recently, so I'd want one of those too, and prob 2Gb DDR 2 and 8800 of some sort. I assume my old case (Antec P160) and Antec 480 PSU could remain, along with my SATA drives. Budget of no more than £400 maybe? Obviously, in reality 10p would be ideal :)

with the C2D chips and DDR2 memory at their current prices it would seem a good time to make the change to PCI-E rather than delaying the enevitable. With your high res monitor I'd advise you against getting a 320mb 8800 card, you'd be better off with the 640mb or better.

Yes, I would try selling your entire PC (minus the shiny Dell ;) ) locally and then build a new rig.

70quid for a C2D (50 when the new ones release), £35 for 2GB DDR2....

Prices are as good as they are going to get for now I feel.