My friend needs to upgrade

[Playaa]

His system is about 5 years old...it's a 1.4ghz Athlon with 1gig (I think) of RAM. He wants to be able to play CS:S sometimes with me but most of the time he plays online poker, CS:CZ and Neverwinter Nights. He CAN play CS:S right now on the lowest settings, but he gets pretty low framerate (low enough that it's twitchy).

He wants to spend as little as possible and is only planning on buying a motherboard and processor. So what he needs is a motherboard that will support AGP (but have PCI-E for future upgrading), supports DDR (but has DDR2 for the future) and is generally just a good upgrade that will last him another 3-4 years. He prefers Athlon (mainly because they're cheaper) but doesn't really care in the end.

So...looking for a motherboard with AGP and PCI-E, DDR and DDR2 and a processor equivalent and would like to keep it below $150 if at all possible (is that possible?)

 

GO!

 

I suppose that if AGP will work for casual gaming for the next 3-4 years he doesn't actually need a PCI-E motherboard, cause apparently it's hard to find one with both AGP and PCI-E.

[Kruten]

So...looking for a motherboard with AGP and PCI-E, DDR and DDR2 and a processor equivalent and would like to keep it below $150 if at all possible (is that possible?)

 

Sure isn't.

[Laz.e.rus]

um.

Increase the budget and/or start from scratch.

Guessing hes using 266 ddr?

[mohawk]

better off finding a used system (components) that can hold him off for another year or two..

 

you know if he spends $200 or so and buys a used system that he can pay cs:s on.. it's only a matter of time until he gets hooked, joins gc, and wants to do a full upgrade...

[boiler]

supports DDR (but has DDR2 for the future)

is this even possible??? I can't imagine a motherboard having two kinds of memory slots...

[Playaa]

it used to be possible with SDRam and DDR. You could easily get a motherboard that supported both.

[Kruten]

There are a few like that, 2 for one type and 2 for the other, but they usually suck.

[Playaa]

by "sucked" you mean "not top of the line". He is absolutely 100% NOT looking for top of the line...he's looking for something that runs CS:S (which his computer almost does already) and runs Neverwinter Nights 1.

[Preacher]

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Se...=MBM-RX480-3700

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16814241033

 

I would prolly go this route if stuck on a small budget. Might need to save another month but after rebate these will make him a very up to date system that can upgrade to the X2 and to the newer video cards. He would still be stuck with DDR instead of DDR2 but it would still be a nice PC when he's done.

[Kruten]

What's his full system specs anyway? Don't know much about it in the first place.

[NOFX]

by "sucked" you mean "not top of the line". He is absolutely 100% NOT looking for top of the line...he's looking for something that runs CS:S (which his computer almost does already) and runs Neverwinter Nights 1.

 

No matter how low of budget you go, I would never buy a board that supported two types a technology.

 

I could wrong on this part, but every motherboard Ive owned that supported two different technologies has always been different chipset other than the usual standard best performers. I have owned two of these types and they were both horrible.

 

a PC100 and DDR266

and a

AGP and PCI

 

both were very bad motherboards. I saw a better increase in performance by buying a new motherboard for the PC100 and DDR and I sent the AGP and PCI back to newegg because the upgrade was basically useless.

 

My advice is, if he is on a budget, not overclocking and whatnot. Find the cheapest motherboard that has an Nforce4 chipset(or whatever chipset is top of the line right now).

 

with a 1.4 and a gig of ddr266. That is going to require a new motherboard ram, processer and video card.(if he is on a budget, find a motherboard that an onboard nvidia card). No matter what small upgrade you do to that machine, it will defintely not be worth the money.

 

You can get an AMD 3000+ for around 60-70 I think.

motherboard with nvidia chipset for about 70-80

and a 1 gig stick for maybe 70-80?

 

You may could get him something that will play CS:S for 200.

[NOFX]

oh well, Im bored and got as close as I could to your 150.

 

Asus motherboard with ATI 200 Chipset

 

1x1gig stick

 

AMD 3200+ 939

 

Total cost is $216 with shipping with a 10 dollar mail in rebate on the motherboard.

 

 

Ive never seen these onboard video cards in action, but the ATI scores higher than the geforce 6100 and leaves you room to upgrade to a PCI-E card later and also a dual core 939..later..