Upgrade advice....

[charger]

Well recently i was fed up with my system and was looking to upgrade it to something a little more beefier .

Any who here are my current specs:
AMD Athlon 3400+ (socket 747, i think)
512mb ram by mushkin
ATI x800pro (useless for cs:source fps imho)
Asus mobo (747 dont know which one in particular)
120gb western digital hard drive
480 antec true power psu
windows xp pro

Ive got about 1000 pounds to upgrade, and i would preferably want an AMD cpu rather than Intel. Not sure about the gfx card though as whether the new ati x1800 will be better/ same as the nvidia 7800gt (atm it looks worse than the nvidia with the current reviews out) and I doubt my current power supply is has the adequate connectors for the pci express gfx cards.

Any feedback is well appreciated from anyone

thanks

[dangel]

Have you tried more RAM first? 512 is way too low for gaming and grabbing, say, 2 gig (might as well) might make a huge difference and you can always keep it if you do want to do a whole new system. Just a thought, as I found that 1 gig was making half life 2 suffer (let alone 512).

If you do go for the whole lot - go nVidia now, there's nothing better and ATI's has firmly lost this round to my mind, particularly with the 'speed boost' drivers for nVidia about to appear. A pre-overclocked 7800 GT is a very good buy imho.

Yes go AMD for processor.

PSU - might be ok, and splitter cables can do the job (i had a 6800 ultra on an old psu with a 431W rating). Again, it can be worth trying something before replacing it.

[sawyen]

its socket 754.. not 747.. yea.. check your memory.. 512MB is way WAY too low to game..

your 3400+ should be plenty for the moment.. but if you still insist, there are plenty of options available as single cored 939 are getting exceedingly affordable..

you could settle for a 3700+ san diego on an ASUS A8N Ultra SLI and get yourself a 7800GTX.. you can recycle the rest of the components and that Antec should be fine.. 480w is plenty.. worst comes you just need to order another one, say a Tagan Easycon 530 or 580 depending on ur budget..

Either way, you will still need 2GB of memory. You might push 1GB of LLs but nothing beats a nice 2GB of 2-3-3-6 TwinX C2PT..

[Rohan]

Your current spec looks fine, a socket 754 (not 747) 3400+ is pretty good still, and the x800 pro should be a good performer in source. My spec is similar to yours but with a less powerful 6600GT, yet I can play cs:s and dod:s fine at 1152x864 with 2xAA/8xAF.

Like everyone says, the only weak part is the 512MB of RAM.

If I was you, I'd first upgrade the RAM to 1GB. If you want to upgrade the graphics you'll be looking at a motherboard upgrade too, as most next gen graphics cards will be PCI-express.

[Scarlet Infidel]

Wasnt it decided that those x1800 reviews were pure fiction? Its less than a week till release, wait till then to see.

[charger]

Thanks for all the replies, aye yes it is the 745 not 747, its in the past anyways . Well essentially i knew i would have to upgrade the mobo for latest generation gfx cards, i just wasnt sure about the psu though. Tagan's do seem very good stability wise as well.