Hello,I have:AMD Barton 2800xpAsus A78NX motherboard1GB PC3200 DDR400 RAM.ATI Radeon 9800 Pro.I want to upgrade something soon as I have the cash available, but not spending much more than

I have an idea. Since the next generation of cpu's, motherboards and videocards are literally 4-6 months away, I'd say hold onto your money until then. What you're currently running is really good, and you would be throwing money away investing in today's technology when the future is coming this summer.Mike

Hi Alexander,I agree with Mike, there isn't really anything out there for your budget that would represent good value for money. The fastest CPU for your motherboard is the XP3200+, the new 64-bit CPUs are very expensive, and require a new motherboard. They should drop in price once Intel comes out with a competitive product.In the meantime, all I would suggest is maybe a good sound card and a good CPU cooling fan - your RAM can run at 400MHz FSB, while your CPU runs at 333MHz, so you could try overclocking it (increase the CPU FSB in small increments, while keeping the RAM in sync with it). This should cost substantially less than GBP100, so you can save the rest of your money towards that big upgrade 6 months down the line...Cheers,Gosta.http://www.hifisim.com/images/as2betateam.jpg

Hello,Thanks for the help. Can I ask what is coming down the line in 6 months? I have no idea. This was my plan anyway to wait and save i.e.

You should wait a few months. The Athlon64 is evolving too quickly right now so stuff that was top of the line last month is useless today and some can no longer upgrade. In fact, I just looked it up and already noticed that the AthlonXP FX-51 is no longer available for sale on TigerDirect.

you can boost your CPU to a 3000 or a 32000 if your motherboard supports 400FSB.

Hi,>Can I ask what is coming down the line in 6 months? I have no idea.;). But there haven't been any real major developments in the past few months. AMD have come out with their 64-bit CPUs, but Intel so far hasn't released a competitive product, so the 64-bit Athlons are still very expensive. As far as graphics cards go, PCI+ is rumoured to replace AGP as the standard. So it looks like the hardware 'formats' are bound to change, so that today's hardware is unlikely to be compatible with the new stuff.As to overclocking, temperature control is very important - anything with silicon in it is quite temperature-sensitive. You can test it by holding a hot soldering iron next to a diode, IC, transistor etc. and you'll see the output voltage drop. So, apart from cooling, you may have to increase the CPU voltage as well.Cheers,Gosta.http://www.hifisim.com/images/as2betateam.jpg

But how interesting is the 64 bit CPU from Athlon? Neither Windows nor FS take advantage of the 64 bit architecture.But how is it with the nexr version of Flight Simulator, will it be a 64 bit application? Does anybode know?

>As for overclocking, I already had a go and got to 175mhz CPU>freq and anything above that I got blue screens and was>unstable. I had it running equivalent to a 3000xp, but I>would sooner play safe and not overclock.Remember to turn down the CPU multiplier as you turn up the FSB clock speed, and it should be fine. But proper cooling is essential.- Oyvind

Tried boosting the CPU multiplier and I get blue screens and it becomes unstable.Regards,Alexander Martin.

You shouldn't boost the multiplier, but rather turn it dowm. With an FSB freq of 200Mhz a multiplier setting of 11 gives 200*11=2200Mhz=XP3200.- Oyvind

I will give that a try.But can you add me to MSN or something to talk me through the process [email protected] if you don't use MSN please email me with instructions at [email protected],Alexander Martin.

Sorry, I don't use MSN, but there's not much the whole operation can be described in a few lines, as you seem to know how to do stuff in the BIOS. Just use the settings I suggested, and be prepared for them to not work as not all CPUs oberclock well. In that case revert to your old settings. Keep an eye on the temperature, don't do this thing unless you have a CPU cooler that can handle the extra heat. On my Asus A7N8 motherboard some BIOS settings involving the FSB frequency seem to bring the board into an unusable/unbootable state, you then need to physically remove the battery and move a jumper to reset the BIOS (described in the manual). And please, please don't hold me responsible if anything goes wrong ;-). - Oyvind