I know have Athlon XP 2400+ Powercolor Radeon 9800 Pro 128M and 512 M 333 MHz DDR RAM.Is it a good idea to spend extra money to get a Athlon 64 3500+ instead of 3000+?BTW is a Athlon 64 the best choice?How big difference would there between 333 MHz RAM and 400 MHz RAM?What is bestGet a AGP motherboard and keep my current graphics card?Or get a PCI Express motherboard and buy a cheap PCI Express graphics card (can't afford a expensive new graphics card)?

Hi i own the Athlon 3500+64bit and a powercolor x800PE 256mb.its a difficult question to solve.because one piece of hardware will bottleneck the other.i would go for an AGP m/board and the Athlon 3500+ 64. keep your card for the time being.the RAM is also important.i use 1gb of ballistix 400 memory and with the 3500+,vid card and memory.i get quite good FPS..i run a lot of addons!!..if you get the Athlon 3500+ its a 939 pin chip so you'll have to get a 939 pin mobo.the asus 939 mobo is about

Jfri, the upgrade you're looking at is mainly a big upgrade because you're switching CPU-technology. The difference between the various CPU speeds shouldn't be dramatic anymore. Steve gave you some good hints. As for RAM, if you have 2x256MB PC2700 (333MHz), it should be equal or better than 2x256MB 3200 (400MHz). This is because 256MB PC3200 modules are very often single-sided, where 2700-256MB modules usually are double-sided. 512MB PC3200 is almost always double sided. By principle, you'll want to equipe your board with double-sided modules. Therefore, the next thing you should be seeking is 2x512MB (or more). I hope it fits into the budget... Case not, just continue with your 2x256MB PC2700 for now. Personally, I'ld also stick with the well matured nForce3 (w/ AGP) for now. However, not many OEMs use the nForce3 for their socket-939 mainboards. I.e. Gigabyte offers the nForce3 250-Ultra on a relatively priceworthy board. Hope this adds to thoughts, good luck and kind regards Jaap

I have heard something that would change the situation.I have alwats assumed that I will be able to plug my old IDE harddrive into the new motherboard and Win XP will start without problems. Now I have heard that this is not the case but it will be necessary to reinstall Win XP and of course everything else from scratch. Is it so?

not so...haven't heard that.i use SATA drive.dont think that you'll have to do a XP reinstall .when you start XP with new mobo,you will have to install the new mobo drivers..shouldn't cause you any problems.I've swapped just about every bit of my computer. good luck steve

>not so...haven't heard that.i use SATA drive.dont think that>you'll have to do a XP reinstall .when you start XP with new>mobo,you will have to install the new mobo drivers..shouldn't>cause you any problems.I've swapped just about every bit of my>computer.>Yes new mobo drivers is needed and because of that, Win XP needed to be reinstalled since these drivers is installed when Win is installed, and without them the computer could no be booted. That I was told.Can Win XP be started before the mobo drivers are installed?

Jfri, the OS should boot without a problem. If you want to play it safe, perhaps de-install your current mainboard drivers etc beforehand. The OS will then use generic drivers on the new sys. Nevertheless, when making such dramatic system changes, I warmly recommend to 'abuse' the opportunity and to do a fresh install. Btw, you'll need to re-activate XP. Good luck and kind regards Jaap

>Jfri, the OS should boot without a problem. If you want toI now remember when I last changed motherboard. In that case my old harddrive was replaced with a new 60 Gb which I think I configured as a master. Still the OS on my olddrive was started when I switched on the power. But that was Win 98 and not Win XP. Unless things have become different with Win XP it seems that you are correct.

PCI-Express is definitely worth investing into. If you can afford to wait the dual core CPU's should be promising.