Budget Spec, AMD X2/Intel Asrock Questions

[wibble1]

I'm looking at doing a budget upgrade for my PC,

Currently on AMD 64 3500+, 1GB DDR PC3200 & ATi XT1950 AGP.

Looking at spending around £150ish

I would like to keep my gfx card and as such I thought i'd go with:

ASRock AM2NF3-VSTA,

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Socket AM2 (2.7GHz) 1MB L2 Cache OEM, / or AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Socket AM2 (2.8GHz) L2 Cache 2MB (2x1MB) OEM


Along with 2GB DDR2 ram, however, after some initial research, It turns out that this motherboard along with the combination of a dual core AMD chip and my ATi gfx card isn't support in Windows Vista.

So, I've looked at pricing a similar system using an Intel chip,

Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail / or

I have considered this chip too Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.20GHz (800FSB) - Retail, however it goes over budget slightly.

Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 (Socket 775) PCI-Express/AGP DDR2 Motherboard

They roughly work out the same price,

Performance wise, which is going to be the better route with the above hardware?
Would I notice a increase in gaming from my current system?
If i go with the AMD route am I going to have any problems playing any of the future games designed around VISTA & DX10 if I just use XP?
Which would be a better route for future upgrade etc?


Thanks

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Forget the E4500 as it's just an overclocked E2180, so to speak. Between the Intel and AMD setups I think the AMD would be a bit quicker owing to it higher clockspeed which makes up for its performance-per-cycle deficit.

However, I think that if you sold your AGP graphics card you could buy the PCI-e equivalent and have money left over from the proceeds. You have the fastest AGP card available so it fetches a premium. If you did this you could then get a new setup that doesn't depend on legacy support.

 

[wibble1]

Yeah I've tried to sell the card, but can't shift the damn thing, and on online auction sites they don't seem to be going for much.... ~£40-£60

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Well, if you could get £60 for it you could then get the same card again but in PCI-e form, opening up a whole lot of upgrade possibilities. It's something to consider at least.

 

[wibble1]

Yeah, think I will do that, but try and do it more in stages. With my budget, I've decided on going with:


Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 (Socket 775) PCI-Express/AGP DDR2 Motherboard (£43.46)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail (£52.86)

Sub Total : £81.98
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.25
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £15.79
Total : £106.02

And then I will keep my Mem and AGP card and when I can sell the parts, It will finance new DDR2 memory and a cheap PCi-E card.

Does anyone have any experience with overclocking Asrocks, done some research in the forums and the general feeling is that they are not that great for OCing?

 

[G|mp]

ASRock AM2NF3-VSTA
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+
3GB RAM
X1950 Pro AGP

Thats the spec im running with Windows XP and can safely say its a nice little gaming rig