Hello all,

I am hoping to use some of my tax return to build a new system. I also have a Sony computer I'm going to ebay, and hopefully that can bring in some cash for the build as well. I currently have a 2.2 ghz p4, 1 gig of ddr (3 sticks though!), and an AGP x1600 pro 512 meg. I'm hoping to spend 300 to 400 dollars on new MB, ram, processor, and case/ps. Potentially new video card if necessary.

I would like to move up to a dual core with ddr2 obviously. I am wanting to do this somewhat on the cheap though. I am planning to use a 2140 or 2160 unless you guys think differently.

My issue comes in selecting a motherboard for multiple reasons:

-I have 3 250 gb ide hdds I got on black friday in 06 that I would like to use in this build

-I was considering using an intermediate board such so I could use the x1600 for a while longer since I only do moderate gaming (newest i play is orange box and can deal with a slightly slow experience) on 1280x1024.

I was looking at, you guessed it, the asrock go-between board...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813157115

or something like this foxconn...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813186101

I like the idea of using these because they have dual ata channels so i can use the 3 hds. With the asrock I could use the agp card for a while too.

If I end up with a P35 board, would it be a good idea to use sata to pata adapters for the hard drives? Anyone have experience with these? It's either that or a pci add in card, and I'm not sure how easy it would be to do a fresh install of xp using one of these.

I plan on getting an antec sonata3 with the 500w earthwatts from bestbuy partly paid for by a gift card for about 100 bucks my cost...

Please let me know what you think!

IDE is dead.
AGP is dead.
That is all.

I pulled up the stats on this MB…

I understand you want to go with a less expensive build, but this upgrade is going from dated to dated.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview. [...] DUAL-SATA2
1 x PCI Express Graphics slot (@ x4 mode)
2 1 x AGP 8X slot

In my personal opinion I would wait a little longer and get a few more dollars… even a $600 dollar machine will WAY outlive/outperform this one.

The fore mentioned MB doesn’t even have potential to run todays low end gear 1 x PCI Express Graphics slot (@ x4 mode)

I would try to find another solution… You defiantly want something that runs ddr2-800, Pci-e 16x and just buy cheaper parts for it.

On another note… ASRock MB.. I dunno man, go for an Asus or gigabyte… something with a bigger/better name, the MB is the heart of the computer.

**Just my opinion, I am sure others will disagree.

Sometimes we just need to let go….
You are in need of a NEW machine; the time for upgrading has passed for that dinosaur.

Thanks for the replies. I understand agp and ide are on the way out, and I said I'd be willing to get a new video card. The only things I would really like to reuse are the hard drives and optical, otherwise, an entirely new build. This is what I have so far:

Antec Sonata III w/Earthwatts 500w ps from Best Buy using gift card - $80

Intel Pentium E2160 - $79

G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 - $47
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231098

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L - $90
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128059

This comes to a total of $296 before tax.

I can probably stomach $170 for one of the reference design 3850's but might just go with a 2600xt for video. Maybe i'll just throw in my Diamond Stealth s220 pci as a stop gap

I know these are not extreme upper crust components or anything, but I think they would allow for some upgrade room. I would hope to bump up the cpu to something significantly more powerful.

If there are any other motherboards you think would be better in the range of 100 dollars, please let me know; I do know that family of Gigabyte boards seems pretty popular here on the forums and should allow for some mild to moderate overclocking.

I would still like to know of any experiences anyone has had with ide to sata adapters and/or pci ide controllers like this - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6816124006 or can suggest something similar

Thanks again

This is a decent motherboard for a good price that will offer some future upgradability then?

I just built a system with that -DS3L mobo, and it was absolutely painless.
As to your hard drives, I would suggest getting a new SATA drive for your build. You'll need to install Windows anyway. After doing so, make sure the SATA drive is the first drive in the boot order, then sequentially: 1) shut down 2) install one IDE drive 3) reboot 4) copy data from that drive to the SATA. Repeat 1-4 for each IDE drive with data to copy. You can leave one of them installed (or two if you get a SATA optical drive) if you like, otherwise buy external USB 2.0 enclosures for them (about $25-$30 each) and use them as backups.

The DS3L is hard to beat .

If you have 3 250gb ide drives that are new in the box, you can get $50-60 for them on e-bay. The equivalent sata drives are only $65 at newegg. I would keep one(at most), and look for a deal on whatever sata capacity you need. If you must use the 3 ide drives, you can get a pci adapter card for $15-40.

Use the optical on the ds3l ide port. A nice sata dvd burner(samsung 203) is only $30 or so.

As to the vga card, look at this list for the best values: http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/0 [...] or_100_tie

For $100 you can do ok.

If you can do rebates, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820145034 corsair ddr2-800 2gb kit is a bit cheaper.

---good luck---

See:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] w=0&nojs=0
for OCing on the P35-DS3L.
Get this RAM instead (cheaper and about the same):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820145590

My benchmarks on the E2180 @ 3.2Ghz:

^Agreed
PCI Controller like this one :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6815124001
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822998001

Thanks for the benchmarks shadow! I think I'm leaning towards getting a pci ide controller. Newegg has a non-raid rosewill with 2 channels for 11 or 12 bucks, can't beat that with a stick, and its rated well on there. I know those reviews must be taken with a grain of salt, but some of the other cheapies didn't have such good reviews and if the newegg general user can make one work well I think I can too. Besides whats 12 bucks!

Do you think there would be a problem installing xp on the onboard channel, installing the pci ide card and making sure it works, then moving the boot drive to the pci card? Seems many on newegg are booting from the pci card. There shouldn't be any issues with the drive moving from one controller to the other as long as its properly installed and all. Let me know if there's something i'm missing

I don't think I would move the boot drive to the pci card. Is there supposed to be some benefit? Booting from the mobo controller removes one element from the possibility of failure.

Just planned on ending up with a couple opticals I already have connected to the onboard, at least to start with.