kYdizzle

you still there OP? well here is my two cents

first, i doubt you would want a mobo from asrock, even though other brands will have a higher initial cost, th longevity of it will pay ten fold. also steer away from via chipsets in general, so far , in my experience, they don't compare with amd, intel, and nvidia chipsets. sorry via fanboys.

i would not upgrade to a mobo that does not use the cpu you buy to the fullest, it would be a waste of your time and money. it would then require you to upgrade again later on, earlier that you would if you got a premium mobo.

if you did want to upgrade to 4 GB, you would have to get a 64 bit OS to use it correctly. 32 bit OS's have trouble with 4 GBs. also 64 bit windows have limited support with anything mainstream. there is no need to get it anytime soon.

so far, 2GB's is plenty for anything, i have no lag doing multiple things at a time.

so far, if your going to replace the CPU, MOBO, MEM, Video, you might as well upgrade everything else, as the older components will lag the faster ones, reducing the efficiency of the money you put into the new parts. so wait until you have enough money to do it all at once.

so it would be better to build a new computer, but using the old case is still ok if you have sufficient air flow. and NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE SAYS, it is better to have MORE watts than required, to both plan for the future and to anticipate any problems you may have with the parts you buy. so a new PSU would also be on the list to get

good luck with your computer, and if you need answers, please post back

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bdubslawman

First to clarify I never said he shouldn't have more watts than required. But he has more than 50 - 100 Watts to spare in the systems we noted and I mean that at a 75%-80% load which is 25-30% more of a load than he'd get if he was gaming his a$$ off.

Second, you are sort of proving my point. I won't shout but its not about claims of big wattage numbers they are meaning less. If a power supply has unclean rippled power or suffers sags (deviates from standard +/-) values on the rails then it doesn't matter if its rated at 1000Watts it is going to wear & eventually kill your expensive new system! Its about Quality of the power supplied in proportion to the maximum needed and to do it efficiently with less wasted energy which has the byproduct of HEAT. People are also un-informed about what was originally agreed to in power supply specifications, that was that no rail (12Volts are what this really concerns) will have more than 20Amps. Well that was fine 2 years ago. But the Nvidia cards and SLI/Crossfire systems have shown a flaw in that design namely that with some cards requiring dual PCI-E additional power connections, this was causing an unequal usage/distribution that the system had no way of correcting unless (it was correctly diagnosed) many people were told that they needed bigger more wattage power supplies when the problem was that they simply were getting shutdowns because there system fully involved in gaming or ??? was trying to draw over the 20Amp cap (while other 12 Volt rails set barely used). The past & standard diagnosis would have been replace the power supply its either failing or inadequate. Which was wrong & technically wrong...a shift of some of the graphic card(s) requirements over to one of the other under-utilized 12V Rails was the solution! This was occurring on even large wattage 650 PSU's...having nothing to do with a lack of total power just as they experienced with smaller psu's which as it turned out were just being used/setup incorrectly.

People have been fooled into thinking that the Wattage is the key, its only part of the equation. A high watt rated but poorly (under 80 percent efficient) power supply is going to cost you several hundred of dollars more than a more efficient psu if it manages to run for the course of 3-5 years. The less efficient PSU is going to throw off more heat meaning in some cases an increase in case temps.

Some other points of consideration. Yes Graphics cards have gone up in power consumption into the 150W range for single cards. But at the same time mobo's (965 & especially P35's have/are using less power)- Things like Ferrite cores /mosfits designs require less power and Processors are down to 65Watts and below for C2Dual. Thats almost half and in many instances is well less than half the power used with Pentium D processors because of processor throttling. So on the whole we haven't increased the power requirements of a systems and in all cases but the Nvidia 8800 line we have reduced it. Penryn processors will be even less power hungry. Graphics cards will be less power hungry when the new dies come out (upcoming release).

So on NET the power requirements (of a single graphics card computer system) are with a 8800 about the same as they were with a fully loaded Pentium D or with other graphics cards (the Wattage requirements drop off quickly when you get away from the top two/three tiers) the demand drops to 125Watts MAX for the X1950 lines and drops to around 60 Watts for the Card that the OP mentioned the ATI 9550.
Even conservatively adding a C2duo, an ATI 9550, a Mobo, a bunch of hdrives, optical drives, 2Gigs R.A.M. memory is going to be No Where close to 250 Watts and even benchmarks don't run every thing in a system at once.

Another thing you said is to plan for the future. Well he has head room to add drives, PCI cards etc. We are talking about an Alienware power supply here. They didn't send out cheap stuff. He has the head room and plenty of room to grow unless he throws in a 8800 and we are dealing with a budget system not a 500 graphics card.

Best investment I ever made was a P3 Kill A Watt device. Newegg just had it for $19.00 shipped. It displays total power drawn at the AC plug by your system. This is not the same as what your system actually is using. You have to then subtract the amount of inefficiency (the power that is drawn from the wall but is going to waste as heat) and you have your system's real power consumption. Push the system running benchmarks try and get something that pushes both CPU & graphics intensely. Recompute=Then you have your system's Idle & under heavy load True wattage ratings.

Shipwrecked

I really appreciate all the responses! I've read them all thoroughly!

I have given up on looking at the asrock mobo per advise.

This is the current list of components I am looking at now:

ASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
*newegg.com $119 ($10 instant saving)- has 2 ide connections so I don't have to upgrade hardrives just yet

WINTEC AMPX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail
*newegg.com $61 - reviews seemed good

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe 2.66GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor - Retail
*newegg.com $192.99 - they dropped there price $3 yesterday, and some type of free game with it

DIAMOND 2600XT256PESB Radeon HD 2600XT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail
*newegg.com $99 ($10 promotional savings for signing up)

This list puts me over budget at $483.07(including shipping on some parts), but I can try to save more or take advantage of they delayed pay option to get more money.

For a future purchase, if needed, I was also looking at this psu:

Enlight Sniper 5604724 ATX12V / EPS12V 650W Power Supply 100 - 240 V UL, CE, CCC, TUV,FCC, RoHS - Retail
*newegg.com $104.99 ($20 instant savings) - It claims up to 95% efficiency, 80 PLUS certified

I would like to hear what you all think of this list before I commit.

And thank you so much for your help!

Unixlord

Seriously bad choice of CPU. Doesn't make sense.

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bdubslawman

The Wintec AMPX (3AXT6400C5-2048K) is listed as using Micron D9 GKX Chips
LINK: DDR2 RAM List
Micron is putting out some of the best chips in Overclocking circles these days. Its not that they don't die, they do. But they seem to be able to be overclocked nicely beyond there rated speeds.
Don't know what Wintec's Warranties are. If its not Lifetime then I'd go else where. Mushkin, Crucial & OCZ all have sub $60 (2GB sets) Fry's has some decent OCZ memory posted today (won't last long) for $39 After rebate. Otherwise they seem good along with MOBO, which states flash bios for Intel 45nm processors so that means this board will support the new Penryns. (no personal experience with Wintec).

-Don't know why the other poster doesn't like the E6750, wish they would elaborate as to why? Its a great chip if you don't plan on overclocking it will give you a nice speed now with the option to overclock later on if you choose. HOWEVER, if you plan on overclocking then you are going to be overspending with that chip. You could still keep your budget with a less costly chip and not loose any of that performance.
A few months down the road, in January the new 45NM Penryn chips come out. The tray prices (1000) have been leaked. The prices are actually going to be less than the current Core 2 Duo 1333Mhz chips for similar speeds. (The smaller die allows them to get more chips out of one wafer). The price leaks for the last three releases and price drops have been dead on in 2 cases and reached the third one within $10 within a few weeks.

-The ATI 2600 is a mistake IMHO. It is SLOWER THAN the X1950 line and although it is Direct X10 it will actually not perform very well at the top games that are currently out with lots of eye candy.
On paper it seems like maybe it would seem like a good purchase...b/c of the direct x 10 capability. The fact that it is slower than last generation in memory & GPU speeds and half the bandwidth. As long as you know what you are getting & that it will not be better or faster than the X1950 or Nvidia 7900 series then at least you know what you are getting.

-Power supply. I don't know that brand off hand and I have to go so I can't look at it now. But there is no Power supply that is close to 95% efficient ....maybe its a misprint of 85% but if not I'd be leery of the company if they are truly claiming that. Just not possible with current technology to be 95% efficient!

Dual Core = Release Jan 2008 - Tray prices
---E8500-3.16Ghz-9.5 multiplier-333 Base system clock-6MB cache-$266
---E8400-3.00Ghz-9.0 multiplier-333 Base system clock-6MB cache-$183
---E8300-2.83Ghz-8.5 multiplier-333 Base system clock-6MB cache-$###
---E8200-2.66Ghz-8.0 multiplier-333 Base system clock-6MB cache-$163
Quad Core
QX9650-3.00Ghz-unlockedmulti-333 Base system clock-12MB cache-$999- Nov 11
Q9550-2.83Ghz-8.5 multiplier-333 Base syst. clock-12MB cache-$530-Jan 08
Q9450-2.66Ghz-8.0 multiplier-333 Base syst. clock-12MB cache-$316-Jan 08
Q9330-2.50Ghz-7.5 multiplier-333 Base syst. clock-06MB cache-$266-Jan 08

kYdizzle

yeah, the hd 2600 is a bad idea, mostly a waste of money. would get a 1950 over it anyday

may i ask is there something wrong with your system now? something that makes it imperative for you to upgrade now? the wisest choice in my opinion would be to wait for some more funding, then get a better mobo, better video card, and a better processor (i like that one you selected, but the quad cores are getting cheaper, and you would not be sorry you waited to get them.

lol, bduds, are you an EE major? it seems your hooked into yapping about the PSU's

basically what i can skim for your posts are that you should be smart about what PSU you buy. and that is about it.

btw shipwrecked, Newegg is the shit, nice to see you went there for shopping and selection

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Dyre Straits

I'm glad to see you've decided to avoid that Asrock mobo.

However, I'd like to point out that I'm presently using the ASUS P5N-E Sli board, with the latest BIOS revision and updated drivers. However, I'm really NOT that happy with it. (I do have to keep using it for a least another week or so in order to complete some reviews.)

In all likelihood, I'll be putting everything back into the Intel D975XBX board when I'm done. Frankly, I'm just not that pleased with the nVidia chipset. I'm really a lot happier with 'pure' Intel chipsets on my motherboards.

But, that's just me.

__________________

Shipwrecked

I'm not sure I understand why the hd2600xt isn't as good.
It is:
pci express 16x
256mb 128bit gddr3 memory
core clock of 800mhz
memory clock 1400mhz
dx10
$99 w/free s&h
Like someone said, "looks good on paper"

as apposed to the cheapest 1950 card which is x1950gt:
256mb 256bit gddr3 memory
core clock 500mhz
memory clock 1200mhz
dx9
$114.99 plus $5.84 s&h = $120.83

does the 128bit vs. 256bit make that much of a difference?

Zamoldac

i have the ddr4 model and i'm pretty happy with it i've played any game on 1280x960 or hier everything high and on some games aa to, and on dx 10 the only game that sucked was lost planet in rest i've played everything preatty good even the mp beta of crysis , as in 3d mark scores is not so far from x1950pro even it has only 128 bit.

and it's pretty oc'able i can get cores up to 920 mhz an no crashes or anything the memory goes up to 2450 mhz but the the card get's a little to hot like 62 degrees in crysis mp beta anyway if you are looking for a long term solution that's cheap and good an you want to be able to run dx10 games to i think it'a good pick. the x1950 is great to but in the long time it's outdated a lot of power but nothing to use it on
have a look at this :
3d mark 06 low http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/imageview.php?image=7532
3d mark o6 high http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/imageview.php?image=7533
quake 4 low http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/imageview.php?image=7528
quake 4 high http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/imageview.php?image=7529

this is the ddr4 version of 2600XT.

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gen.Rage1991hrv

about chipset same here
i like more intel chipsets than other
it shows more performance intel(cpu) on intel(chipset) than a intel on nvidia or on other chipsets
ehh and one more thing it allso shows less issues on intel chipsets

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