Hi;
Desperately need your advice. The BIOS on my 5 year old machine died on Sunday. I need to purchase a new motherboard today or tomorrow. Of course I will need a new CPU and memory to go with it. I am on a limited budget and will need something that I can install now and do future upgrades for my harddisks, video carde, TV tuner card and other periphials.
I have on my dead machine the following new componets I would like to keep if at all possible:
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro Atlantis (AGP)
ATI TV Wonder 550 (TV Tuner card)
2 Maxtor 40 GiB Hard disks
Monitor etc.
PCCyper has suggested and quoted me the following:
Motherboard - ASUS M2NPV-VM $98
RAM - 1 GiB Kingston $53
CPU - AMD Athlon 64 - x2 3800
socket AM 2 $84
Total with Taxx $267.90
My knowledge of this kind of hardware is limited.
I need some help deciding. I have a preference for Intel products based on prejudice not experiience. The salesman said that the eqivalent Intell based setup would cost $120 more. That is beyond my reach.
I have to stay in this price range. There is not much room left for a retired guy.
Before I do price comparison shopping, perhaps someone could suggest how I can get closer to my goals.
I wold like:
a.. to replace my board in the next two or three days. I am currently sans computer.
b.. to have advice on whether Intel is , in fact, a better choice over AMD.
c.. ASUS mother board has an integrated NVIDA video card, but I would like to make use of my ATI card (AGP) if it is a better card.
d.. Certainly want to reuse the TV Tuner card.
e.. to move up to a basic Dual core CPU. It can be further upgraded in the future,
f.. 64 bit system not necessary (I don't think)
g.. and I don't need a gaming level machine but do want the basis for the next 5-6 years.
I really need advice on this one guys -- my computer has become my life blood.
Sorry for the 'Outlook' and HTML post, but I can only use what I can borrow for the time being.
Regards Bill