help - replacement Emachines motherboard needed

[Guest]

Specs:
Emachines EL1300-02w
- AMD Athlon 1.6GHz
- NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE on board graphics
- 2 GB Ram/Memoy
-160GB Hard Drive

Hello,
I want to play games like Fallout 3, on low/medium settings, and need to replace my motherboard for a graphics card upgrade since it only has one PCIE x1 slot. What can I replace it with?

 

[C12Friedman]

You have an interesting motherboard there - looks to be midway between a micro-ATX and mini-ITX board. You should be able to replace the motherboard with a mini-ITX board but I found no mini-ITX boards that will support a socket AM2 CPU and that feature a PCI-e x16 slot except the ASUS M4A88T-I Deluxe which is quite pricy and doesn't seem to be in stock anywhere anyway... hmmm

 

[the1corrupted]

For the graphics, I can suggest an nVidia GeForce 9800 GTX or GTX+ (whichever might be within your budget).

For the replacement motherboard, it's almost worth going to an AM2/AM2+ motherboard... So plenty might be found in the used motherboard bins on eBay or Amazon.

 

[C12Friedman]

As much as I try to be optimistic and as much as I believe your machine still has life left in it... I just can't see it's life as a gaming machine in any aspect outside of flash - I think I'm going to suggest looking at a used machine (that at least has potential) as sometimes nice ones can be found. As an example I found a used Computer last year for <$100 - added a one year warranty for another $30 (buying used computer equipment is scary IMO, need some insurance), I threw in a 9800GT and it's been great...
I bought it from Directron (there are likely other sellers of similar systems with warranty) and it seems they have other used computers yet like this one: http://www.directron.com/used2012.html I will suggest adding a 1 year warranty if you go that route. I put the Directron link there only because they do offer a warranty and I've found very few other used computers that weren't "as is"... no warranty or guarantees
Just something to consider since I think it would be easiest route with least expense to get a "gamer" - you'd still need a graphics card though