Upgrading Motherboard and GFX Card

My current system is a 1800Xp in a ECS K7s5A mobo. I have 768mb of DDR memory.
with Windows XP Pro.
I want to upgrade my GFX card to a radion 9800pro at least, ready for Half-Life2 and the new wave of games, but thought I may as well get a new mobe as well to use the 8xAGP capability of the video card.
If I just swap the MOBO and GFX card, will Winows XP find everything OK? Or is the process more complex due to BIOS settings and where Windows is looking for things?
I have not built pcs for a while (since I built his one)and wondered, should I also go for some better type of memory, or is older DDR OK compared to the other new stuff?
My final question is...... I have an Iiyama 17inch TFT with a max res of 1280x1024. As most of these new super GFX cards are designed to show off at high res - is it worth getting them with such a monitor?
TiA

 

I like your idea, Silverwork. I, too, am currently in the process of replacing my daughter's ECS K7S5A with a Shuttle Nforce2 AN35N Ultra 400 I snagged for only $54.

The K7S5A was always a shaky board for me and literally thousands of others (I think more people bought this mobo than any other in history). I'd be very wary of putting a 9800 Pro in that board. I wonder if that board could even supply the AGP slot with enough power. So I like your idea of ditching the K7S5A.

The only question about memory is, are you going to go up to a higher bus speed? You can keep your current memory and cpu but you'll end up still running at the 133 FSB (assuming your RAM is PC133). But no, the only thing "new" (I think) in system memory (DDR) for AMD boards is higher bus speeds. I haven't paid much attention to the Athlon 64 boards because I don't have alot of extra money lying around. You can do this in phases by buying an Nforce2 Ultra 400 mobo and then later get around to a cpu that runs at FSB of 166 or memory that runs at 200 FSB. At which point you can simply overclock the cpu to a 200 FSB, no problem. Just make sure you make large enough leaps in technology by buying a mainboard and memory (PC3200)that supports the 200FSB.

With your cpu and memory and an FSB of 133, your 9800 Pro will be tied up in the barn and not be able to "break out ". But it's still a great investment if you're a gamer.

Gary

 

You are right about having problems with the K7s5a, it regularly won't load windows until I reset the BIOS settings.......
I will check that board out. I'm thinking maybe I should go the whole hog and get GFX card, MOBO, Faster CPU and new memory, but the cost is a problem amd also the fact that I will then have a decent set of parts with no real resell value. Maybe I will get the mem and cpu later.

How easy is it to swap the MOBO over with WindowsXP?