Upgrade advice

[Yoshi64]

I've decided I need to upgrade my computer. Right now I have:

AMD Athlon XP Barton 2500+ @ 3000+
Abit AN7 Nforce2 Ultra400
2x512 Mb Kingston PC3200 DDR RAM
ATI Radeon 9800 SE 128 Mb
1 SATA HDD
1 IDE HDD
1 IDE DVD-burner
3st 80mm + 1st 92mm fan
400W Powersupply (I got it with my Aspire case, only 15A on +12V)


The new components I am considering:

AMD Athlon 3500+ or 3700+ S939 RETAIL
Nvidia GeForce 7600GT 256 Mb
Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra

I will take all other parts (including RAM) from my current computer.

I have some questions/concerns:

* Will my power supply be able to handle the new components? I know it is difficult to answer, but maybe someone can make an educated guess?

* Is it worth spending extra money for the 3700+ (same frequency, more cachememory) compared to the 3500+? I play quite alot of World of Warcraft.

* Is it needed to have SATA-drivers on a floppy for the nforce4 mainboards? I have to use that for my current nforce2, when I'm installing windows. (I have WinXP Pro SP2 on cd)

Hope you can give me some tips!

 

[chocoruacal]

Originally posted by: Yoshi64

* Will my power supply be able to handle the new components? I know it is difficult to answer, but maybe someone can make an educated guess?

Maybe. Aspire makes crappy PS's. The 15A are barely cutting it. I'd keep another $50 in reserve just in case. Fortron makes PS's in the 400-450 watt range that would be more than enough.

Originally posted by: Yoshi64* Is it worth spending extra money for the 3700+ (same frequency, more cachememory) compared to the 3500+? I play quite alot of World of Warcraft.

You'll never notice the difference between the two in games, or in anything for that matter.

Originally posted by: Yoshi64* Is it needed to have SATA-drivers on a floppy for the nforce4 mainboards? I have to use that for my current nforce2, when I'm installing windows. (I have WinXP Pro SP2 on cd)

SP2 comes with the necessary drivers.

 

[Twsmit]

3500+ and that mobo look like nice picks, but DO get a new powersupply, i would not rely on that aspire POS to power your system.

 

[Yoshi64]

Will it be necessary for me to reinstall windows after the change in mainboard,cpu and gfx-card? In Win98, it was very needed, but maybe not in WinXP?

 

[Twsmit]

Originally posted by: Yoshi64
Will it be necessary for me to reinstall windows after the change in mainboard,cpu and gfx-card? In Win98, it was very needed, but maybe not in WinXP?

yes it is very much needed in XP

 

[alimoalem]

Originally posted by: Twsmit

Originally posted by: Yoshi64
Will it be necessary for me to reinstall windows after the change in mainboard,cpu and gfx-card? In Win98, it was very needed, but maybe not in WinXP?

yes it is very much needed in XP

yup

everything else looks good but i would definitely get the new power supply and consider getting an extra gig of ram whenever the money comes

 

[WildHorse]

Why don't you just sit tight for a few months until the new
AMD 2-core Windsor and 1-core Orleans Socket AM-2 (940 pin) cpu's, or the new Intel Conroe cpus,
motherboards with NVIDIA nForce 5 or VIA K8T900 chipsets,
DirectX 10 video cards, and
DDR2 ram are out & debugged?
It'll be a whole new generation pretty soon.

You'll need a higher wattage psu, 400 with 15amps on +12 v is too small.