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View Full Version : Great deal on Radeon X850 XT AGP (also need system advice)

Kurth
01-09-2006, 11:06 PM
I recently snagged a Radeon X850 XT AGP from MicroCenter for what I think was a steal. The card was $299 - 20% - 50 mail in rebate for a net price of $189.99. The deal is still going on, I think, so anyone in the market for an AGP upgrade on the cheap may want to check it out.

Now, my biggest question is whether to upgrade the rest of my system to take advantage of the X850 XT's power. I'm running a P4 2.4 Ghz with a 533Mhz front side bus and I've got 1 gig of PC2700 DDR333 RAM.

Any thoughts on the the proposed upgrade below? I'd especially be interested to hear what you think about the extent of the likely performance increase. Also, this is my first foray into an AMD system, so let me know what you think of the CPU/Mobo pairing. Thanks!

Current System
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.4b (Northwood) – 533mhz FSB, socket 478
Motherboard: Intel D845PEBT2 – 533mhz FSB/DDR33/socket 478
RAM: 1Gig PC2700 – DDR333
Graphics: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128

Proposed Upgrade
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 - $160.00
Motherboard: ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 Socket 939 ULi M1695 - $72.00
RAM: pqi TURBO 1GB (2x512MB) SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) - $79.47
Graphics: ATI Radeon X850 XT 256 AGP - $189.99

Total cost - $521.45
Mike
01-10-2006, 05:18 AM
That's a great deal on the X850...I hate to see you upgrade your system and not go PCI-E though...

Have you thought about just getting a faster processor and keeping your motherboard and memory? Have you tried just overclocking your 2.4?
Kurth
01-10-2006, 02:47 PM
That's a great deal on the X850...I hate to see you upgrade your system and not go PCI-E though...

Have you thought about just getting a faster processor and keeping your motherboard and memory? Have you tried just overclocking your 2.4?

Yeah, but I found the value of that card at that price was too sweet to pass up. And my PCI-E upgrade path is pretty clear - the ASrock 939-Dual motherboard has full support for both PCI-E and AGP! I figure I'm getting the best of both worlds . . . hopefully! :)