Help With Next Major Upgrade?

[rallynavvie]

Hmm, apparently ATi is going only PCI-E with the X600. That's a damn shame. I guess the 9800 Pro is your better option on an AGP platform. Unless you got one of the motherboards that has come out in the last month with PCI-E on it you won't be able to use the X600. I'm kinda wishing my board had PCI-E on it

Anyone interested in buying a DH800 board and procs in a few months?

[IAIHMB]

Damn! So what would be the NVIDIA equivalent of the 9800 Pro? I'm almost starting to think I should be forgetting the new video card and upgrading my motherboard to prepare for future upgrades. Would this be a good idea, or are they just going to come out with some new uberfast PCI-SE6643643643 slot?

Damn, I am looking at NewEgg.com and it says I have a cheap chipset (Intel 865P on a HP Pavilion a450n, url here http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?lc=en&cc=us&docname=c00058235.) Do you guys think I could get a decent motherboard and case for around 325$? Also, would I have to get another 865P chipset and should I worry about compatiblilty?

[Treebeard]

The nvidia card closest to 9800 pro would prob be the 5950 ultra.

[IAIHMB]

Hopefully someone can help me here. I am looking at this motherboard:

GIGABYTE "GA-8I915G Pro" i915G Chipset Motherboard for Intel LGA775 CPU -RETAIL

Here are the current computer specs I have:

HP Pavilion a450n Desktop PC

Do you guys seem any compatiblilty issues? The only thing I could think of was RAM, but I really don't know to much about this stuff. I have 184 pin DDR, when I searched for that on NewEgg that board came up. Does my board have any advantages over the one I posted, or was I stuck with shit from the beginning?

[rallynavvie]

That board actually looks pretty nice. TI FireWire, plenty of USB 2, onboard video for backup, decent onboard sound, and of course PCI-E slots. Keep in mind it only has one IDE controller on it so only two IDE devices which you'll probably want to use for optical drives. It has 4 SATA ports so hopefully you have or will invest in SATA drives for it. I've heard good things about that chipset though.

[IAIHMB]

I think I will just hold off on the motherboard for a while. I am really looking forward to an AMD 64-bit with a few PCI-Ex16 slots. For now I am going to go with:

ANTEC Black Performance Series II SOHO File Server Tower ATX Case with 400W Power Supply, Model "SX1040BII"

and

ATI RADEON 9800 PRO Video Card, 256MB DDR, 256-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP -RETAIL

These will be the last questions. Since the case specifications say:

Mainboard Compatibility: Fits up to Extended ATX

does this mean it will fit an MicroATX without modification? Any tips for switching my case out? Thanks again guys.

[rallynavvie]

IIRC correctly MicroATX works in ATX cases it just doesn't use all the standoffs that are there for ATX boards. The Antec SOHO is a pretty common case so there's probably reviews out there that will say for sure if it takes MATX. Odd, it's using a Smart series PSU instead of a True series.