full sweep or?

[willd58]

Athlon 3200 754
1gig ram (i dont know if it matters but the ram speed 3200 or something supposedly, i have no idea what this means but it was what i was told to get when i was building the machine, if anyone could explain that would be ace of you!)
9800pro AGP
AGP 754 mobo

Would it be worth me getting a AGP card to replace the 9800 or should i wait and do a full sweep to 939 and PCI express? a lot of people keep recomending M2 or something, i have no idea what this is.

Sorry, im sure these questions get asked loads.

 

[vanandjuanunited]

3200 is the speed of the memory. Also known as ddr400.
Agp are rather expensive so my advice would be to hold off unless you need an improvement now.
Budget option if you wanted would be to get a cheap socket 939 board like the asrock 939 dual sata for £50 Processor for £100 and keep the rest of your parts. Sell the S754 and mobo to part fund it.
M2 is the new AMD processor due in a couple of months but it will most likely be expensive and also require new memory as well. DDR2. Also until its been out a while it will probably be a bit unstable.
I still use my 9800se modded to pro to play games and it still capable. Depends on what you want out of your computer.
Do you game?

 

[willd58]

Yea i game, call of duty 2 looked terrible which had me worrying.

 

[daviec]

I had the same system as the OP, and found there simply wasn't a AGP card worth upgrading to. For the same price as a high end AGP solution I was able to buy an Epox 8npa S754 SLI board, and a 7800GT. Then I sold the motherboard and 9800 pro, making it a fairly cheap upgrade all things considered. My new system rocks

 

[willd58]

Interesting, didnt realise you could gert 754 mobo's with PCI slots.

How much would i get for my MSI K8N NEO platinum and 3200 64 754 do you think?

Would i need a new PSU to power the graphics card, ATX 2.0 compliant or some such? (current one is kind of old, original sonata smart power 350)

 

[daviec]

Don't know what price you'd get for your motherboard and you'd be better keeping your chip if you're staying with socket 754. I got £70 for my 9800 Pro if that helps. That was all a bonus as far as I was concerned though. A new worthwhile upgrade on an AGP card was the same price as a new board and pci-e card, so I went for the pci-e option as it meant I got a more powerful card for my money.

I kept my old psu although it isn't ATX2.0 compliant. Mine is a 465W one though. I had to plug the 20-pin connector into the 24 pin socket, but it runs fine.