(08-09-2008, 08:23 PM)Blues link Wrote: If you get a new video card and want to keep anything from your old comp besides the HDD, case, CD/DVD, and PSU, you have no logical/cost effective choices but to fully upgrade your motherboard, CPU, RAM, and probably PSU. New motherboards use DDR2 RAM, older AGP boards use DDR. If you were to search for a PCI-E mobo that uses DDR, you MIGHT find one, but it would be ridiculously expensive (200$ probable minimum) and for that you might as well just get a new mobo AND 4GB of RAM (You could get that for 160-180 if you wait for a RAM sale no problem).

Also, with your system as it is, if you used any of the old parts and got a new video card/other parts, you'd be bottlenecking your system anyways. Imagine a hose that has 2in openings on both ends, but is 1in in diameter in the middle. You're only going to get the water flow of the smallest point in that hose, regardless of how big you make the openings. Hardware works the same way, if you're using slower, older parts somewhere in your system, you're going to affect the performance of the rest of the PC.

I've got a build for a 500$ PC that would last you for years. If you're interested let me know, I'll find it and post it up with links to the stuff.