Upgrade advice

Darician said:

I don't know where you're getting that PCIe 2.0 Slots won't support PCIe 1.0 and 1.1 cards. Almost all sources I've read indicate the opposite.

May not, it tends to vary - have you looked at the parts I suggested?

I looked at the parts and they look good but I don't want to spend the extra money on DDR3 RAM. That makes it too expensive for me currently.

True I guess. I have a couple 7950 GTs that I want to reuse but to their power requirements, it ain't easy. And also, if I had the money to spend on DDR3, I'd just upgrade to a Core i3 or i5 and be done with it.

Darician said:

I looked at the parts and they look good but I don't want to spend the extra money on DDR3 RAM. That makes it too expensive for me currently.

Get this motherboard; its the one I have:

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

just note that it doesn't much room for expansion in terms of tv tuners etc. Supports DDR2 800 (which I'm using in this build).

Dar, I was afraid you would say that, what's your max $ budgeted for this project please, give us the painful MAX of truth after you shattered the piggy bank and counted up the coinage...

First of all is that ASUS mobo of yours still working? (I know sounds like a dumb question, but I have to start somewhere)

..and is it R2.0?

Shows up with specs on newegg here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131048

And could use the Core 2 Duo CPUs so no new mobo needed?

If that's the case, then you could put that extra money into a E8400, same one I use, $169.50 or go lower E7500 is $117.

The maximum budget I'm putting to this and this is an absolute maximum: $200 (and that's including shipping, tax, etc.) My current ASUS motherboard is working though. My current Pentium D PC, just to note, is fully operational and has no technical issues to speak of. It's just slow due to the CPU being its bottleneck.

Additionally, I also want to start testing 64-bit VMs for Server 2008 R2 evaluation and training and my Pentium D doesn't support Hardware Virtuatization that is required to run 64-bit VMs so I'm out of luck currently. The Pentium Dual-Core E6600 that I picked out supports Intel VT to have that covered. As far as AMD goes, I know pretty much all of them (except maybe the Semprons) support AMD-V for Hardware Virtualization so that would be covered. And NTFS, regarding that motherboard, it's nice but what threw me was it being MicroATX. I sincerely prefer regular sized ATX boards.

Kind of coincidentally though, you sound like most of my colleagues who want me to convert to AMD. Again, the cores and price may sway me but on the other hand, I've tried Athlon II X2 and X3 and their performance in many aspects is really reminiscent of my Pentium D. Don't get me wrong, I understand they smoke the Pentium D to death but in many instances, it doesn't feel that much faster whereas the Pentium Dual-Core E6500 that I've tested really smokes the Pentium D very badly. I've thought also about Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad but the price is still a bit high. If I can stretch it, I might even go for a Core 2 Duo E7500. I'll still take a look at AMD but I'm not too keen on it as I am on Intel.

Where do you stand on that current ASUS motherboard, it can apparently run the Core II Duo CPUs.

Which if just replacing the CPU, I'd go E8400 and be done with it.

MOBO:

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-MA770-UD3 AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard

With DDR2

CPU:

AMD Athlon x4 635

Newegg.com - AMD Athlon II X4 635 Propus 2.9GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor ADX635WFGMBOX

Under $200.