Computer upgrades! Plz help!

Factual Questions
1

I have been looking to upgrade my computer :slight_smile: I am running on Win 98 se, with a P3 733, 256 megs of RAM,and on an old TNT2 (32 megs, i think… So anyway, yeah, it’s gettin old.
I was thinkin I could get a new geforce 4, Win XP, an Athlon XP processor (1500-1700) motherboard combo from pricewatch.com , and 512megs of DDR.
Waddya think? I got some questions…
1.WinXP at a retail store is about 100$, but pricewatch has one for 50$!!! Is this too good to be true? One copy for 50 bucks? Full version and all?
2.These upgrades would probably happen in stages, with XP and the video card first, and then the Motherboard combo with the new Ram. Would it be smart to reformat before putting in the first upgrade and then have to do it again for the second phase? My comp is gettin a little messy and a good reformat would make me feel good about putting new hardware in.

Anyway, waddya think?

2

I just built myself a new system and recomend a MSI K7N420D Pro motherboard with the nVIDIA Nforce chipset,GForce2MX + Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound + 10/100 base T network adapter all built in to the chipset.(all high grade components,no cheap parts!)
It is the best bang for the bucks in motherboards that I have seen.
Have built 2 and both have been as stable as a rock running Windows ME.(linux drivers avalable)
Here is a link to MSI’s website.

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=10&MODEL=MS-6373

To answer your second question,it’s better to wait till you upgrade the mobo and chip to reformat the hard drive and reinstall the operating system that way you start with a clean slate with no old drivers cruding up the system.

Peace
LIONsob

P.S. The 2 boards that I bought came with the optional D-Bracket and CNR riser card included