help on upgrades

[Heitachi]

I have $600 to upgrade my comp.

I want new motherboard, cpu, motherboard fan, graphics card, and maybe need 512 stick of ram (i have 512 stick of ram in my comp now but not sure if it would be ok for new motherboard, friend took from other comp and gave to me so not sure what kind it is or whatever) might need cd rom drive, as i've heard people having trouble installing with dvd drive or other drives. But the cd rom i could get for like $12 so no worry about that.

Also want pentium 4 and atleast 1.8 ghz and maybe 800fbs motherboard if possible. I've looked on pricewatch.come but not sure what would all work together.

For the graphics card i was thinking a gforce fx 5600 ultra or the radeon 9600 pro. Both 128 mb. Other card suggestions welcome.

thanks for any help.

[Heitachi]

guess this can be closed

i've decided to go amd.

comes out to like $401 probably little over with shipping

AMD ATHLON XP 2500+ "Barton" 333 FSB PROCESSOR CPU- RETAIL

SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9600 128MB 8X AGP DVI/TV RETAIL

GEIL DDR RAM 512MB PC-3200 Value 400MHz Ultra- CAS 2.5, 2T Command With Extreme Performance Heat Spreader

ABIT NF7-S ,nForce2 SPP chipset Support AMD Socket A with 200/266/333 FSB ,8X AGP,SATA 150 ATX motherboard Retail

[Doppelganger]

Originally posted by Heitachi

GEIL DDR RAM 512MB PC-3200 Value 400MHz Ultra- CAS 2.5, 2T Command With Extreme Performance Heat Spreader

change that to 333mh pc 2700 ddr ram and you are set. it will not effect proformance much (if your mobo can handle 400mh ram at all:sweat: ) that will lower the price, and you can then get >768mb ram instead. other than that, good choice for minimal price

[Heitachi]

thanks, was looking at so many different combinations that i didn't pay attention to the ram speed.

thanks for advice

[Elucid]

Ram

Actually you should get 2 sticks of ram rather then one. Look into finding a decent priced matched set of 2x256mb PC2700 (333mhz) ram or at least 2 sticks of the same model, size, and speed of ram from the same manufacturer

[Elucid]

and....

and make that a video card a 9600pro if you can afford it, the difference is important