Hey there, First thanks in advance to anyonee who can offer their expertise. I built my system about two-three years ago. It is still running well but there are the occasional slowdowns even with 1GB ram. I'm mainly interested in an AMD Athlon 64 (undecided on speed), PCI Express, & SATA I and II. Based on my specs below, what do you all think I should do? Intel D850EMV2 Motherboard Intel 2.8GHZ 533FSB CPU 1GB Samsung DDR PC800 RAM Creative Audigy 2 ATI All in Wonder 9700 Pro Sony DRU500A (getting a dual layer already) TDK 40X CDRW/CDR Burner 160GB Maxtor ATA133 HD WD 40GB ATA133 HD Thanks to all who reply... Morris

To upgrade simply because there is something better out there is a unattainable goal. That said, if your machine still meets your needs most of the time then maybe all you really need is a system cleanup/ tuneup. Do you perform regular system maintenence? Scandisk, defrag, spyware/malware removal. As far as what you are considering goes, SATA drives aren't much faster than ATA drives. PCI Express is in its infancy. Any graphics cards available won't be drastically faster than AGP versions of the same chip. In Short, there aren't many compelling reasons to run to these new technologies, except for the fact that they come along with the Athlon64 boards. If you are upgrading and need new drives and graphics, it makes sense to go that way to get the most time out of the upgrades.

If you do choose to upgrade, then i would get a 939 pin Athlon 64 & motherboard as I feel that these will hold the greatest upgrade potential in years to come, If you chose to go down this route, be aware that these are VERY expensive and that you should not settle for any motherboard that does not support PCI-Express, that would just be stupid, Athlon 64 motherboards with PCI-Express support are only just appearing on the market so you might have to wait a little while. If you wait and take an Nforce 4 motherboard then you will have the ability to run 2 PCI-Express Nvidia cards (from the 6600 / 6800 families) together with 1 output, giving about 70% better performance than a single card through Nvidia's SLI technology, this would, however mean scrapping your graphics card, but may be worth-while given the geater long-term upgrade potential. What ever you decide something faster will allways be around the corner ;-) Merry Christmas! Never argue with the fellow that packs your parachute

IMO that is still a very nice system you have there, perhaps, as others have already mentioned, you should take a good close look at your software and OS. Computer nut since 1985 and still loving it...

I gotta agree. My system is 3 years old and does everything I ask of it. You have a nicer machine and I can't imagine anything it won't do unless you're into high end video editing or cad. I'd like a new A64 system with pci express too but feel I need to wait for another year or so for a better deal with better components. Skip

If money's no object then why not - if your on any kind of budget I'd stick with the P4 you've got already. I don't have any slow-downs doing everyday tasks on my P3-866(oc'ed just a little hehe), OtheHill hit the nail on the head. j1mbo Win2k / MEPIS linux PIII 966 / 640MB

Actually CAD and video editing is perfectly reasonable with the system the original poster has. IMO, his system is still an excellent system and upgrading is unnecessary. Asus K8V-X Athlon 64 2800+ ATI Radeon 9550 512 PC3200 20 Gig Maxtor & 80 SATA HD's HP CD-RW LG DVD