Upgrade time

[bggsm]

OK my current rig is this.

ASUS M2N-E
4GB G.Skill DDR2 800MHZ
HD4850 512MB SAPPHIRE
550W Corsair PSU
Athlon X2 6000+ 3.1 GHZ dual core

OK, this is a gaming machine and was wondering what would be the best thing I can to it with 250 dollars. Is there anyway I can squeeze more life out of this motherboard? What are/is the recommended upgrades you'd do to this PC. Motherboard upgrade too I suppose. But I wanna salvage as much parts as I can.

Thanks,
Mark

[glc]

Best thing you can do for gaming is upgrade the video card. Your processor is still a good one for gaming and you have plenty of ram. Any motherboard upgrade that's significant will require DDR3 ram and a new processor, and now you are over $250 without even upgrading the video card. Upgrading just the processor in your current motherboard is not worth it.

Now - a 4850 is still a decent card, what I'd most likely do is take that $250 and hide it. Run what you have till you have enough money to do a SIGNIFICANT upgrade.

[Khalil]

Originally Posted by glc Now - a 4850 is still a decent card, what I'd most likely do is take that $250 and hide it. Run what you have till you have enough money to do a SIGNIFICANT upgrade.

Excellent advice, I agree 100%

[bggsm]

Thanks guys. Thinking of just doing a whole new tower build. Setting this system off to the side as a backup/parts.

Thanks,
Mark

[bggsm]

GIGABYTE GA-MA790GPT-UD3H AM3 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Instant
$104.99

EVGA 896-P3-1255-AR GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
$214.99

AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition Deneb 3.0GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Processor $155.99

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL8D-4GBHK - Retail
$108.99

Windows 7 Home Premium 109.99

Would this be a significant upgrade and be feasible and worth the $$ from my above mentioned setup. I was thinking of salvaging my hard drive, dvd-rom drives, case, and PSU. Now the PSU is a 550W CORSAIR psu. I am hoping that will be enough to power the system.

Comes out to about 700 dollars.

THanks!

[glc]

For GAMING, the only item in that list that will provide a significant upgrade is the video card. The upgrade from a dual core to a quad core just doesn't mean a lot for gaming - yet.