Birthday computer upgrade.

The Real McCoy said:
Another question. If i get a new motherboard and processor then will i need to get a new copy of windows? I am currently running windows xp and don't want to have to switch to vista.
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no you can keep XP but youll need to install new mobo drivers accordingly

-Blue
 
how much can you spend , im not sure what the budget is but heres what id do a new mobo and cpu (you can have a nice cpu and itll run like crap without a nice mobo
) now with that being said if you have a limit id go with amd , like a phenom x4 9950 its like 99$ and a decend say asus mobo i think you can get one for under 150 that would run really good , i of course am a hardcore amd enthusiest so i will only really recogment amd , but im sure some intels you can run almost as cheap , keep in mind a 9950 altho isnt a phenom II it is still a good cpu but keep in mind therte is a reason its 99 opposed to the 230$ phenom II
 
If i get a Asus mobo and a Phenom II x64, would i need a x64 copy of windows in order to take use of the ability to use more than 3.5g of ram?
 
Yes you would. 32-bit operating systems cannot support more RAM than 3.2 GB. They cannot address the rest of it because other devices (video card) need the addresses that would be otherwise be assigned to your RAM. I'm not good at explaining it, you can probably find a better explanation on the internet. Bottom line is that you need an x64 OS to support more than 3.2 GB of RAM.
 
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so ideally, i would get a new Asus motherboard, A phenom II quad core x64, a new copy of windows xp x64 (or vista :() and like 4 more gigs of ram :-D?

and i would keep my 8800gt, power supply, hard drive, and network card :-P

might as well get a new slick case and call it a new computer lol :)
 
You could skip on the RAM and Vista if you wanted. The processor alone would give you a very nice boost.

If you did get a new OS I would go for vista instead of XP x64. Believe it or not there is much better driver support for Vista x64 than XP x64. Vista isn't as bad as a lot of people stereotype it to be. A lot of people just regurgitate the problems vista had years ago and haven't updated their knowledge. Or they just hate user access control because it asks them a lot of questions (but it can be disabled). I recently stopped dual booting XP and vista just a few months ago and couldn't be happier. Vista runs great on my system and I haven't had any more hiccups than I did with XP. Although I still provide myself with one safety net, which is having XP 32-bit installed as a virtual machine in vmware, but I've yet to need it. So that's just an aside that I don't recommend at all unless you somehow already own vmware yourself.
 
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I had vista installed on my laptop and had terrible problems (mainly firefox froze every 10 minutes or so and so did everything else). So now i have windows 7 beta but i dont know if i trust vista enough to put it on a new machine. But we'll see. It all banks on how much i get for my birthday tonight :-P

Thanks for the help.

edit: I'd hate to skip the RAM, its soo cheap lol :)
 
If you went with one of those combos I would grab the gigabyte board. It's probably the best of those offered excluding the much more expensive Asus board.
 
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I suppose since the Foxconn is cheaper you could go with that. I didn't notice it had a bigger discount. I thought the gigabyte was cheaper, and since I like gigabyte more than Foxconn I suggested that one. I don't really know much about the gigabyte or foxconn boards listed in the promotion so I was going on the idea the gigabyte has a slightly better reputation than foxconn. It's basically a coin toss for me since I can't find any reviews of the two boards. Go with the Foxconn because it's cheaper and the newegg users seem to like it as much as the gigabyte (although I'm generally skeptical of the newegg reviews).
 
keep in mind , windows 7 beta is great and you can get it free , including x64 :) straight from ms website
 
If i do get the Foxxcon and the Phenom II do i need more of a power supply than what i have (550w)

I dont have the money for the Asus and i do realize windows 7 beta is out there but i dont want to run that and then when they stop the beta have nothing. do you know if when they beta ends then 7 will be out?
 
hey real mccoy, w/ ur current setup & when u upgrade 2 the phenom cpu along w/ ur current video card, im sure that ull be fine. i have a 9800 gt which requires a 400w psu, so i upgraded from a 460w to a 600w that i got from qcon last year.

also, when it comes 2 the os, just use ur current version because i dunno how 7 handles when it comes 2 the games.
 
Foxconn A79A-S AM2+/AM2 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard

and

AMD Phenom II X4 920 2.8GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Processor

have been ordered :) Thank you so much for your help everyone.

I will also be ordering 4gb of DDR2 1066mHz RAM soon :)

I might need help with the install :-P
 
pillar said:
also, when it comes 2 the os, just use ur current version because i dunno how 7 handles when it comes 2 the games.
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My roommate has Windows 7. It games at least as well as Vista and has been very stable, especially for a beta release.

The Real McCoy said:
Foxconn A79A-S AM2+/AM2 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard

and

AMD Phenom II X4 920 2.8GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Processor

have been ordered :) Thank you so much for your help everyone.

I will also be ordering 4gb of DDR2 1066mHz RAM soon :)

I might need help with the install :-P
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Congratulations. I think you'll enjoy it.
 
gj , and yes your psu is more than enough , you only need 475 2 run that , altho get a 850 when you have the money (keep you from killing your 550) so just use it for now , and enjoy the speed , if you need help overclocking just ask man .
 
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