Feeling a bit slow...

[raivn]

> i hope this is in the right section

i built my computer just over 3 years ago, not knowing much about what i was doing. i mainly used parts that were last year's top of the range bits that had dropped in price and it has served me well; however things tend to move rather quickly in the world of computers and i find my games have become increasingly demanding and are now being run sluggishly on medium or even low settings.

NVIDIA geforce 7600 gt
AMD athlon 3200+ 64 processor (2ghz)
2gb ddr2 400mhz
k8n neo4 - f motherboard

thats what's inside the box, i just bought a new 600w silent psu which is beautiful.

im looking for something that will last for a few more years, i don't use vista but 4gb ddr2 800mhz of ram seems logical from the prices available, with the rest upgraded to reflect that, i am assuming my motherboard is the weakest link at the moment. i really dont know too much about processor and motherboard combinations, which is why i am asking here.

i have had a look around but thought i'd ask for opinions before i hit the shops the only constraints i really have are that i can only spend around £400 on this though it is flexible really, and that my monitor only accepts digital input ...

 

[raivn]

gah what is that angry face doing !

 

[cfvh600]

You are going to have to upgrade the motherboard,cpu,ram and graphics card if you are looking for something that's going to last you another couple of years.

 

[groo]

I'd say its time for a complete redo, even at your low budget.

 

[raivn]

if i replace all 4 of those parts with something along the lines of the following:

Intel Q6600 Quad - 2.40 GHz, 8MB, 1066MHz
XFX Nvidia 9600GT 512MB
Kingston HyperX KHX8500 2x2gb

any other suggestions?
what motherboard should i be looking at?

 

[groo]

for a gaming machine, spend more on a graphics card than a CPU.

the standard sugestion is a C2D (games don't use 4 cores, not much of anything does yet), maybe a C2Q if your in it for the long haul, or its a serious work machine too. a p45 chipset motherboard, and an ATI 4850 graphics card.

you don't get much more performance out of high end memory, stick to DDR2 800.