Maximum PC

I've been out of the loop as far as motherboards go for a while now. I kinda only pay attention when I'm going to upgrade. I know shame on me.... So what's with the new pci express? Will my old regular pci cards work in those slots? Is it backwards compatible? What about my AGP card? I don't seem to see any agp slots on these mobos like the neo4 plat from msi. And what is sli?

I have an XP AMD system right now. its a 1.7ghz (amd and thier damn naming schemes) I wanna get an amd 64/FX 939 barebones and move most of my components over to that. 3500, 3800 or 4000 do you think? Budget is pretty flexible. If i can keep it under 1000 around 900 would be great.

Thanks!

current pci ang agp cards are not compatible with pci express. pci express is meant to replace these older standards. all of the new motherboards do still have pci slots so if you have pci cards you need to use you still can.

No, but of you want to go 939 and keep the card you could go with an Nforce3 Ultra or K8T800 Pro chipset board instead.



Scalable Link Interface. It allows you to run two graphics cards in tandem.



Assuming that you may have PC2100 or PC2700 RAM. If you get a 939 board you'll want to upgrade to PC3200 at least to get max performance. You may also need a beefier PSU.



Get the best one you can afford.



If you go with an AGP 939 setup you may be able to keep most of your components and upgrade one at a time as your budget permits. If you want to go PCI-E you may just want to chuck everything and start over. It is possible to build a brand new system for around $1000 depending on which parts you pick (3500+, 6600GT, etc). Good luck!

The 3500+ is the sweet spot in AMDville. Anything higher and the price/peformance ratio drastically reduces.