squarenuts
05-11-2008, 09:37 PM
Wife's Video card failed while I was away at School. :mad: This was one of the newer parts in her rig. I am loooking to do a MB/CPU/RAM upgrade and have some questions.
Motherboards: (trying to say around $100 or so. )
Looking for something stable that wont break the bank, yet will alow for some upgrades down the road. I am looking at the MSI P35 Neo2-FR. Am I on the right path or should I be looking at a newer chipset? (no OC needed no SLI needed) Just want some something that will run everything the power button is hit. (or should I get an Intel Board?)
Ram:
She will be using Win XP Pro 32Bit version. I have seen in PG gamer about getting a total of 4 GB of ram and just let XP see 3GB. I guess this is a smart move with VISTA being an upgrade some time down the road. Or should I just get 2GB of DDR2 and just be happy with that?
CPU: ($200)
Intel has A LOT of cpus to chose from!!!
When I was thinking about this last year I was looking at the E6750. Now I see this E8400 for like $20 more. What the better deal? Two cores are plenty for her. She not the type to mult task so I think quad is just too much power. But would like that option down the road.
Her main games are;
City of Heros / villains
Sims 2 and I think Sims 3 when it comes out.
Current system is
AMD 4600 X2
Ram 2GB
Nforce4 MB (rear USBs have failed not sure how much longer the board will last)
nvidia 8800GT (new card to replace what failed)
Monitor Res of 16 x 10 on a 22in.
Power supply is 650Watts, I have a sound card.
Motherboards: (trying to say around $100 or so. )
Looking for something stable that wont break the bank, yet will alow for some upgrades down the road. I am looking at the MSI P35 Neo2-FR. Am I on the right path or should I be looking at a newer chipset? (no OC needed no SLI needed) Just want some something that will run everything the power button is hit. (or should I get an Intel Board?)
Ram:
She will be using Win XP Pro 32Bit version. I have seen in PG gamer about getting a total of 4 GB of ram and just let XP see 3GB. I guess this is a smart move with VISTA being an upgrade some time down the road. Or should I just get 2GB of DDR2 and just be happy with that?
CPU: ($200)
Intel has A LOT of cpus to chose from!!!
When I was thinking about this last year I was looking at the E6750. Now I see this E8400 for like $20 more. What the better deal? Two cores are plenty for her. She not the type to mult task so I think quad is just too much power. But would like that option down the road.
Her main games are;
City of Heros / villains
Sims 2 and I think Sims 3 when it comes out.
Current system is
AMD 4600 X2
Ram 2GB
Nforce4 MB (rear USBs have failed not sure how much longer the board will last)
nvidia 8800GT (new card to replace what failed)
Monitor Res of 16 x 10 on a 22in.
Power supply is 650Watts, I have a sound card.