This is my 5 year old comp build. The motherboard got changed to the current PCI-E ASUS from an old ABIT AGP one like 3 years ago. My question is, what can I salvage in my build when upgrading. If I can run a more modern hyper threaded 4 core AMD cpu with my current motherboard, I would rather just do that. I of course need to fill the two empty ram slots as well. If I can get away with just changing the processor and adding more RAM, I could probably also upgrade the video card as well.

Windows 7 Ultimate (build 7600)
Install Language: English (United States)
System Locale: English (United States)
Installed: 11/30/2011 9:28:10 PM

Board: ASUSTeK Computer INC. M3A Rev 1.xx
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. 0301 10/22/2007

1.90 gigahertz AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core BE-
256 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (2 total)
Not hyper-threaded

2048 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory

Slot 'DIMM_A1' has 1024 MB
Slot 'DIMM_B1' has 1024 MB
Slot 'DIMM_A2' is Empty
Slot 'DIMM_B2' is Empty

NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT [Display adapter]

I believe my graphics card to be a 512mb but I could be wrong

You certain you bought that mobo only 3 years ago? It doesn't support anything past AM2+ (and even that would require a BIOS flash it looks like from ASUS's specification for the board)

Upgrading while keeping that motherboard would be quite limited. The memory you'd have to get would be DDR2 and as mentioned above you can only support AM2+. Exactly how much of an improvement are you looking for?

He didn't say he bought a new motherboard :shrug:

I assumed that since he replaced his AGP board with it 3-ish years ago, that means he bought it 3-ish years ago; thought that assumption could easily be wrong. Either way, the motherboard will limit the upgrade potential (though not necessarily enough to hinder the desired performance).

The Phenom X4 9750 looks like it'll be the best he can upgrade to on the CPU front (and it'll require a BIOS flash). Probably a ATi 5770 or GTS 450 on the GPU front if you want to avoid getting something that'll be bottlenecked by the CPU

Given that the PSU is 5+ years old (assuming the OP hasn't replaced it), that'll probably also need to be replaced

Note that these would be significant upgrades, but require the OP to update their BIOS and would be the last upgrades this build will be able to see.

as per the advice from a friend I am thinking of going with this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819103871
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813157199
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820231185