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Value (Price/Quality) for Computer Upgrades?
Sierpinski asks: "I am currently researching a new video card, and seeing that PCI-Express has pretty much taken the industry by storm, I have not been able to find a relatively recent (late-model so to speak) AGP card. If I get a PCI-Express card, I'll need to upgrade my board. If I upgrade my board, I doubt my CPU (slot 462) will still be usable. As much as price is a factor, compatibility is as well. I've run into problems in the past where X memory wouldn't work in Y boards, etc. Does anyone have a spec list of the main components (board, CPU, memory, video card) that are recent (ie 6800GT PCI-Express), and work well together?"
Unless you want to add ram, or add another HDD the whole concept of PC upgrades is useless. Assuming that the technology hasn't moved on (pic-express was the example you gave but there is a new roadblock every year), you end up spending half the cost of your original pc, and end up with a whole lot of worthless components.
Wait a couple of months till you have saved enough pennies. Get those pennies together and buy a whole new computer. Use the old one to download with bitt torrent, a server or as a fiddly linux box. Upgrades are pointless. Don't bother.
If you do find a good AGP card, and decide to keep your current MB, RAM, and CPU for a little while longer... then your new AGP graphics card will only be good until you get rid of your current equipment, because your next MB will likely have PCI-express.
Might as well stick with what you have now for as long as you can... and then upgrade your MB, CPU, RAM, and graphics card all at the same time when you can afford it. Then at least your new graphics card could theoretically last you through a few motherboard upgrades.