Upgrade Help

[Fianno]

So, im thinking of upgrading but ive ran into a couple of problems.

My current rig is:
2Ghz P4
768mb RDram
GF6800 ultra 256mb

now I only got me graphics card last year, and it cost me an arm and a leg, so I wanna keep it for another few years. I want to upgrade my processor to maybe a dual core p4 which means a new mobo which means i can get some ddr2 ram. now heres the problem...

I want to be able to keep my graphics card i.e. AGP, but when i upgrade it again I want to be able to get 2 PCIexpress cards and use the old SLi thingy.

I need to find a motherboard which has...
2 PCIe x16 slots
1 AGP
rest PCI

But im having a nightmare trying to do so, closest ive came too is this...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157081

but its has 1 PCIe x16 and 1 PCIe x1 is this the standard for when you want to link 2 cards up with SLI or should i keep looking for one with 2 PCIe x16?

 

[Coolan]

for 2 pcix cards it has to be 2 x16 ports, doubt you'll find one though.

 

[Ryuno]

There arn't very many Motherboards on the market that have PCI-E slots AND AGP. Its one or the other in most cases. Also these can be very expensive.

 

[Agent Davidov]

If you're really looking to hang on to the AGP card for a couple of years then save the money and don't get one with a PCIe slot. By the time you want to upgrade the graphics card you'll probably need to get another motherboard anyway i.e. for different cpu, memory, HD interface, bus type etc. etc.

 

[Crookshanks]

The ASRock mobo you posted is the only board I know of with both AGP and PCI-e - and thats an AMD board anyway (not that there's anything wrong with AMD of course ). FYI its reviewed on tomshardware here: http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20050916/index.html

As Agent Davidov said though - I wouldn't even bother looking. Just get a AGP mobo now (they cost < £100 anyway) which will comfortably last you 2 years. Personally I wouldn't even bother looking at SLI - it seems to me that its always much better just to buy a single version of the next gen card anyway, which costs about the same, is cooler, draws less power, makes less noise, doesn't require more expensive mobo's and supports the latest graphics standards anyway.

Graphics cards have become so fast today that we've gone full circle again, and now the CPUs are the bottleneck in all but the highest resolutions using high levels antialiasing. The physics chips which are due shortly could be interesting, providing they get the game support they require.

 

[Fianno]

ok ive decided to go for an agp only mobo for now untill i upgrade my card, but im having trouble finding one which will support athlon 64 x2 dual core 4200+

only motherboards i can find which support it are nforce4 which are all PCIe (of the 30 or so ive looked through)

is there any other mboards out there that will support my processor of choice? or will i have to get an athlon 64 fx until i wait to switch to PCIe? or can i get a bios upgrade for an nforce3 card to do the trick?

 

[scorge]

ok ive decided to go for an agp only mobo for now untill i upgrade my card, but im having trouble finding one which will support athlon 64 x2 dual core 4200+

only motherboards i can find which support it are nforce4 which are all PCIe (of the 30 or so ive looked through)

is there any other mboards out there that will support my processor of choice? or will i have to get an athlon 64 fx until i wait to switch to PCIe? or can i get a bios upgrade for an nforce3 card to do the trick?

i have an asus sk8n mobo and fx53 chip (although my board is an opteron one and 940 pin)