$150 upgrade

[gillhooley]

I have a secondary system thats still usable but looking to at some power to it. Wondering whats the best way to put $150 give or take into and old system.

I use it for some gaming mostly, RTS or RPG (oblivion). Also general use and music and video encoding.

I have
XP Pro
MSI 939 MOBO
Athlon FX f-55
1.5 GB of DDR
x1900gt
500 Watt PSu
500Gb Sata HD
2x DVD-R


Thinking of leaving video card as only gaming will benefit from upgrade and wold probably need a new psu


So Heres what I found
Foxconn A7GM-S AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
AMD Athlon X2 BE-2400 Brisbane 2.3GHz Socket AM2 Dual-Core Processor Model ADH2400IAA5DO - OEM
OCZ S.O.E 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit
plus $15 or a cpu cooler

For about 140 before $25 rebate

Thoughts?

Better Ideas?

 

[IH8U]

Since all you really use it for is mainly RTS, and Oblivion. Here's my suggestion:

MB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138119
$60 Biostar GF8100 M2+ (onboard nVidia 8100)(Can SLI onboard with another Geforce 8, or 9 series card)(Biostar is slightly better than Foxconn, not by much tho)
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103257
$56 AMD AM2 X2 4050e (cheap, lower power CPU 45W dual core, can upgrade later, as tri-cores will drop below $100 in a few days)(Retail, comes with a HSF)
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227124
$38 OCZ Gold 2 x 1GB DDR2 800 ($20 off MIR)(recommend more later, perhaps 2x 2GB)

Total: $154 + S&H (not counting MIR, or special/combo deals)

 

[o1die]

I would sell off your board, memory and cpu on one of the hardware forums or ebay. I sold off or traded all my old ddr stuff about 2 months ago. You should be able to get at least $100-150 for your 939 stuff to add to your $150. I would skip am2 and go for Intel. Fry's has had some great prices lately, including a 7200e with board for only $100, but I don't know if they will repeat it.

 

[ahslan]

^nice cheap setup IH8U...

gillhooley, dont forget to sell the old parts you're replacing...that cash will certainly help keep the upgrade cost low, or allow you to get something better...
I sold my old single core gaming comp (with an old monitor that I got from work for free ) for $380 and was able to build my new rig for a little over $400 (using old HDD and DVD drive)

EDIT: seems like o1die beat me to it...

 

[gillhooley]

Wow I did not release the Fx-55 was still soo valuable I don't think I paid $150 for it. Nice! SO Now we have probably $300 - 350 to work with. E7200 looks like a good bet would that be better for everyday usage than the low end phenom Quad?

 

[ahslan]

well if you're heavily multitasking, I think a quad core would be a better decision...I built my friend a rig with a Phenom 9550 and 4 gigs of ram and he is in love with multitasking capabilities...

but if you are concentrating on gaming, you got yourself some options...