Upgrading Comp & Need HL2.net Experts

[redpathogen]

I'm upgrading my comp for Christmas and was wondering would anyone here be so kind as to offer their advice and assistance in my personal endeavour?

Anyways I'm a real big PC gamer but when it comes to the tech side I'm completely clueless.

So first things first, on Windows XP is there anyplace I can go that'll list what parts are in my computer right now?

 

[lister]

what kind of PC u looking for? GAMING?

Also which do u prefer AMD or Pentium?

I'd go with AMD tbh,

Please post what u are upgrading, or are you going full, & getting a whole new system?
Post ur budget.

 

[Ren.182]

To view whats in your computer either:

Start>Run> type in "dxdiag" (without quote marks) and hit enter.

OR

Right click on my computer>proporties>hardware tab>then click on device manager. Don't advise you to mess with anything though unless you know what you're doing?

How much do you have to spend? What are your current specs? etc etc.

 

[redpathogen]

I'm going for a solid gaming rig that'll be a strong player of games til at least next Christmas. I have around $1000 to spend but $300 will probably go towards a monitor, so $700-800 for hardware probably.

I'm going for an AMD/ATI set-up. Currently I have a Radeon 9800pro 128mb DDR, 2 Kingston 512MB 3200 DDR Memory sticks at 400MHz, Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Gamer Edition, DFI LanParty UT nF3 250Gb mobo, a Maxtor 4R060J0 Hardrive, and an AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3000+ at 2.0 Ghz.

I definitely need a new graphics card and for that I'm gonna need a new mobo that has PCI express. Probably a faster processor too.

I was looking at mobos and had a question about what the Northbridge thing is exactly, because most all of them are Nvidia Nforces. What exactly is the Northbridge because there's some with ATI northbridges instead.

 

[Ren.182]

Basically, the north bridge is what everything passes through to get to the CPU for processing.

Little diagram for you...

 

[redpathogen]

I see... so now I was planning on the graphics card being one of these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=14-102-642 or these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102610. So what's the difference between the two? Specifically is the one that handles multimedia (All-In-Wonder) just as good as a graphics unit as the standard XL one? Would this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136158 be a good mobo for it? Would this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103569 processor be decent in the set-up?

 

[lister]

I recommend u get this setup...
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
Asus A8N SLI Deluxe
Sapphire 256MB Radeon X850XT PCI-E
250GB Western Digital Caviar SE
525W Hiper HPU4S525

Since u allready have the RAM, Sound Card, cd/dvd drive(s) u will be able to fit all that in.

 

[redpathogen]

The monitor I'm getting is a big LCD TV one so I was kinda wanting to get some kind of set-up where you could also watch TV on it. Don't I need an All-in-wonder for that? The graphics cards I chose, are they not gonna work or not much value power/pricewise?

 

[Qonfused]

No, no, the video cards you picked out are going to have a serious amount of difference from your old system. I'd get into this thread but I got spent out on the last one I was in (that went for 15+ pages).

 

[redpathogen]

I really kinda wanted a somewhat top-of-the-line graphics card. What do you mean serious amount of difference?

 

[3ssence]

As in a large performance difference, they will be much faster than your current graphics setup. i.e. a good thing

 

[Glirk Dient]

I really kinda wanted a somewhat top-of-the-line graphics card. What do you mean serious amount of difference?

Go find benchmarks for your cards and compare them. I belive the all in wonder cards perform slower but have extra doodads on it. Just check it out before you make a purchase so you don't regret it.