Replacement MB and CPU

[Jesterarts]

Hey guys, just need some advice from those in the know about PC's.

My MB seems to have fried the PCI-E port, when my graphics card is installed it has issues booting up but when I remove it and jsut use the VGA output on the MB everything seems to work fine.

I tested the graphics card in another MB an it worked fine so I'm assuming my PCI-E port is gone. The MB is about 3 year old DUO core thing.

Anyway, I'm looking into replacing the MB and CPU while I'm at it.

Probably not looking to spend much over $450.

I need a MB that supports a 9800GTX+ GFX card, has atleast 4x SATA drive ports and I've got 2x 2GB DDR2 800mhz (I think) RAM sticks that also need to work.

Any ideas?

PS, I've been having a quick look around and am considering this:

CentreCom - Cheap Notebooks & Computers
CentreCom - Cheap Notebooks & Computers

But I don't think that MB will support my RAM will it?

[Astranomical]

Yeah, you'll need all new RAM for that mobo, it requires DDR3, DDR2 and DDR3 RAM are not interchangable, just the same as how DDR and DDR2 are not interchangable. If you want to keep your RAM you'll need to look for a board that specifically supports DDR2 (getting harder to find, everything's going DDR3 now), which will restrict you to LGA775 boards (Core 2 Duo/Core 2 Quad), I think most, if not all LGA1366 boards require DDR3.

[PaRaDoX]

did it just stop working? or did it never work, if it never worked back in the old days you used to have to put a jumper over a terminal to disable the onboard video card and use AGP/PCI-E, been out of the "PC loop" for a while now as i only play with high end servers.

[Jesterarts]

Just stopped working.

It was working fine a few days ago, then I had a could issues with the computer crashing a few times, it would sometimes turn the screen on and sometimes not. Than finally sunday it just stopped. I plugged it in using MB VGA and all was good.

The computer actually seemed to be getting through the boot sequence and windows was starting, just the screen was black and never came out of standby. Tried different screens first with no luck, so them I ripped the gfx card and tested it in another machine where it worked fine.

So I eliminated the Screen and GFX card as the source of the fault, leaving the MB.

[Jesterarts]

Ok, so the other day I'm checking up on some prices on centrecom for a repalcement MB and I realise...

I work in IT, I can tax write-off computer parts as I use my home PC for work on occasion!

So, this weekend... I'm picking up a i5 750 processor, a ASUS P7P55D-LE motherbaord, 2x2GB DDR3 Corsair RAM and a new 21.5" Monitor...

Should be back up and gaming this weekend!

[Kurtp]

An i5? You might as well go all out and get an i7 and a new high end gfx card.

[Jesterarts]

No need for a i7 unless I'm rendering... and my gfx card it less than 12 months old i think..
Anyway, pickuped up all the bits today after work, put it all together adn after some pissing about I got it working... thus am able to post here.
Just trying to find a game to test the system with now.