Looking to upgrade. Need Advice Plz.

[Spyder]

Hey everyone, so currently I am using an AMD 2000 or somethin like that, 1.36 Ghz is wat the dxdiag tells me it is. Motherboard is... I believe called 1st Mainboard? At least thats what is written on it lol. Video card is an ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB. 512 MB of RAM. And some crap-tastic onboard sound card lol. So, anywayz, I'm looking to upgrade my PC in late February, early March, when I get my income tax return check :bigsmile: . Here is what I've got picked out thus far with some big help from some fellas over at Frugalsworld. I'm basicly trying to get a decent PC that will run my current games and sims without a problem, as well as be hopefully be able to run this amazing FO when it is released. Current Sims are Falcon AF, MSFS2004(possibly the newer one, dunno yet), looking into getting IL2 and all the expansions as well.

CPU = Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819115003)

Motherboard = ASUS P5B Deluxe LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131045)

RAM = CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X2048-6400 (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820145590)

Tower/GPU = RAIDMAX SMILODON ATX-612WBP Black SECC STEEL ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 500W Power Supply (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16811156062)

There was also a video card in there, but I took it out because it was the most expensive thing their, at over $400 USD. Now, I don't make tons of money to upgrade all the time, so I'm trying to get 1 decent upgrade every couple years lol. As you can tell, these new specs will deffinitly be A LOT better then my current PC. Wat I was wondering is what is a good video card, that will do the job for the next few years, but isn't going to cost me TOO much. Right now, with just what i've shown you, at Newegg.com, I will be paying about $852 USD.

I'm trying to not go TOO far over a grand. With that other video card, I was up to $1,300 something USD which is just a LITTLE bit over the limit for me as I would like to do more then just upgrade my PC with my income tax return check. I've also never had an intel chip befor, and dunno which is better, AMD or Intel, and I know it's pretty much everyone will have their opinion and argue why X is better then Y so it's not worth fighting over, but any opinions will be welcome. Any changes anyone would reccommend to the current list i've made, as well as a decent video card thats not gonna be TOO expensive would be greatly appreciated. Thanks :thumb:

[KING_RICHARD]

hate to admit but intel does have amd beat right now. but time will tell. anyway's i can try to help with the video card since i've also been researching these quit a bit lately.

Don't buy a new one yet. if you can sacrifice your computer your upgrading than take the 9800 out of it, if its pcie, dunno which yours is, and put it in your new computer until the 2nd gen graphics cards with dx10 come out. But most important i believe right now is not to spend all your money on a bad a$# video card that's only dx9 compatible.

One last thing, be carefull with these new top end ddr2 ram sticks, i have a friend that went through 6 sticks of these 800's and all were crap, they are extremely unstable, and yes really 6 sticks. We Finally had to down grade to the speed just below dont remember which inorder to get a good pair. those 800's werent even stable long enough to let him install windows.

[Spyder]

hate to admit but intel does have amd beat right now. but time will tell. anyway's i can try to help with the video card since i've also been researching these quit a bit lately.

Don't buy a new one yet. if you can sacrifice your computer your upgrading than take the 9800 out of it, if its pcie, dunno which yours is, and put it in your new computer until the 2nd gen graphics cards with dx10 come out. But most important i believe right now is not to spend all your money on a bad a$# video card that's only dx9 compatible.

One last thing, be carefull with these new top end ddr2 ram sticks, i have a friend that went through 6 sticks of these 800's and all were crap, they are extremely unstable, and yes really 6 sticks. We Finally had to down grade to the speed just below dont remember which inorder to get a good pair. those 800's werent even stable long enough to let him install windows.

Thx for that info. I believe my 9800 PRO is not pcie, so i dunno if I can use it in my soon to be upgraded system. Or maybe it is and it's just my motherboard/cpu or whatever that is keeping it at the other one... is it agp or somethin? Thx for that heads up for the RAM. I dunno, where did your friend buy this RAM from? Could it be just a certain store got a horrible shipment or something? Anyone else have bad experiences with that 800 series RAM? Thx

~~EDIT~~ Also, if I wanted to upgraded to Vista so i can use the DX10 and DX10 capable vid cards, Is the MoBo/CPU ect. capable of running Vista? I know i've seen a lot of "Vista Ready" whole computers for sale out there, but if I'm planning on just buying the parts myself and putting it together myself, how do I know if it's "Vista Ready"? Thx

[KING_RICHARD]

the ram came from my favorite store here in Las Vegas, FRY's, who i usually have no problems with and can never walk outta the store with out spending some money.

if your still unsure of what your video card is than
1. right click on your desktop, goto properties
2. goto settings than advanced
3. than click the tab that has the name of your card on it
4. than you should have some general info about your card, what your look for is the thing that say's "bus" which will tell if it's agp or pci express

[Spyder]

the ram came from my favorite store here in Las Vegas, FRY's, who i usually have no problems with and can never walk outta the store with out spending some money.

if your still unsure of what your video card is than
1. right click on your desktop, goto properties
2. goto settings than advanced
3. than click the tab that has the name of your card on it
4. than you should have some general info about your card, what your look for is the thing that say's "bus" which will tell if it's agp or pci express

I'm pretty sure it's not PCIE. SO, should I go with just a better, but CHEAP video card for now with this current upgrade just until I am able to get vista and a DX10 vid card? I'm not planning this upgrade till late February/Early March so Vista should already be out by then shouldnt it? I thought I read somewhere it was coming out January 30th? Maybe i'll include Vista in my upgrade package. Then I just gotta hope that the first couple DX10 cards dont cost me an arm and a leg... which they probably will lol. Ohwell.... i picked a horrible time to upgrade lol :sad:

[KING_RICHARD]

than yeah try to get a cheap card untill you have the money for the dx10 card. and i'm also upgrading around the time you will be too. and yup it's kind of a crappy time. the only thing i regret whenever i buy a new video card is that i don't go for one of the topend ones they are usually middle end cards. but this time when i get a dx10 card it'll be a topend one, that way i can eventually run sli when they get cheap enough to buy the second one, and still be happy with my setup.

last i checked the end of january is when vista comes out, and hopefully when tax time comes it'll be stable and widely supported.