It could be the two kids in college thing or just middle age, but I can't seem to push that final button on the old shopping cart full of upgrade parts.
I have an XP2000/AK35GTR combo and it does everything I want right now. I do want a new mainboard to play with and a new cpu to torture, but CPU, 512 of 3200 DDR and NForce2 equal about 270 bucks. Worse yet, what I got now has already experienced most of the decline it will see in resale value. So I probably keep the old rig to fold or give it to a son (if only they would stop knocking over beers sitting on top of cases with the sides off.....)
Still, I almost hit the button at Newegg yesterday.
It seems RAM just has to go up at some point. CPU's will get cheaper and the mainboard du jour always costs you about a hundred bucks unless you go feature rich... I guess the big question is how long an NForce2 will be a good board... (I am quite pissed that the user selectable multilier on my AK35GTR tops out at 12.5).
Barton is out now. What, if anything is on the horizon? Is something good likely to come out this fall?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Thanks for your input and patience. I am embarassed that I keep revealing my indecisiveness on this point.....
What is on the upgrade horizon?
Well, the AMD Athlon 64 and Intel Prescott chips *should* be out this fall, and both will need new mobos. They should be significantly faster + much improved over the cpu's available right now, so if you're willing to lay off a purchase for a while, wait for them. As far as motherboards, the Athlon 64 will use the Nforce3 chipset, and the Prescott will most likely use an updated I875p.
Welcome to the machine.
Ahhh... kinda poorly labeled because the opteron is also 64bit
<font size="1">AMD Athlon 64 3000+ w/ stock cooler, 1GB PC3200, Asus K8N, Built by ATI Radeon 9600 Pro, two 45GB IBM 7200rpm IDE drives, 16X DVD-ROM, Pioneer DVD-RW +/i, Creative Soundblaster LIVE 5.1, Antec Sonata w/ 380W Antec psu. </font>