have got a:
xp 1600 @1.4
512 pc2700 crucial
Radeon 9000 128mb
Volcanoe 9
350 watt qtec!!!!! psu
basically looking to upgrade 1 compnenet will have how ever much component sells for + around £50, what do you reccomena to upgrade, was looking at a barton 2500+ is it worth it?


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What type of mobo do you have and do you know more info abou your XP1600+? Volcano9 though decent is certainly inferior to the Volcano 11/12 and they sell for £15ish at Dabs, you should get near £10 for your V9. 350W Q-Tec isn't nice, a lovelly CWT PSU from Scan would be a very cheap and quality replacement even if you can only afford the £25 350W(ish) one.
But by far the biggest concern is the Rad9000, much slower than the Rad9000PRO which in turn is much slower than the Rad8500 it replaced. Considering you should find a Rad8500 (250/250 min), Rad9600 (possibly), GF4TI (getting rare) or a even a GF-FX (pref FX5600) for close to £50 they'd all be a decent step up. The Rad9600PRO is really the card to get but they are a good £100 ... still you should get £30-40 for your Rad9000 (it sounds good if you know what I mean) and any GF4TI will be a big jump even if you don't o/c. DO you game much on your PC? Where you shoudl spend your money depends on what you use your PC for and what preferences you have.
asus a7v8x is KT400 so 333FSB ready and happily accepts Tbreds and Barton. Considering you can get a TbredB XP1700+ to XP2000+ for £40-50 which not only runs cooler but often o/c's to around XP2800+ speeds it would seem a worthwhile upgrade esp as you should get £25ish for your current CPU ... that's a HUGE upgrade for £20! You may find you want a better HSF but a TbredB running at XP2600+ speed will still run about as cool as your Pally XP1600+. VOlcano 9 is more than fine for that! Although it shoudl only cost you £5ish (after trade-in) to upgrade to the superior V11/12.
FX5600 is way slower than the FX5600ultra which still struggles against the stock GF4TI4200 ... GF4TI is easily the better option and shoudl be cheaper too. BTW SETI is Search for Extra Terr Intelligence and runs in the background number crunching over the net, demands a lot of your CPU but only cycles that would otherwise go unused.
