I just got a 9800xt (9800pro flashed to a 9800xt, actually) for free from a friend, and I would like to upgrade my CPU to go with it. I currently have an Athlon 1900+ (1.6Ghz), with 1GB RAM. I went from a radeon 7500, so it made a huge difference (and added dx9 support), but I think the CPU is holding me back. I downloaded the Quake4 demo to benchmark with. At 1024x768 i get decent framerates with high detail, but when I turn on AA it drops. Last night I almost bought a board/chip combo from Fry's, an Athlon X2 3800+ and an ECS board, until I noticed that it had 'AGP Express'. After some searching, it seems that AGP-E is a makeshift sort of thing, for backwards compatibility, but doesnt have full AGP8X support. I can't seem to find any Athlon X2 boards that feature true AGP8x, theyre all PCI-E. So it seems that if I want to keep my 9800, I have to get a Sempron. Is the X2 worth the extra cash, and having to buy a PCI-E video card?

Not so. If you aren't concerned about PCI-E and want to keep your AGP card, I recommend going with Nforce3 board. There are plenty still out on the market and I've even spotted a couple at Fry's.

Nforce3 support socket 939s processors, however I'm not sure if they will support dual-core.

EDIT: According to the Gigabyte website their Nforce3 boards DO support dual-core processors.

the gigabyte in my sig will support X2 chips....it is NF3 and has AGP AWESOME board...

Friggin' sweet! I just got my tax return for $900, I guess I will be splurging on an X2 athlon.

Lastnight, my friend brought over his new Compaq 1x50n (something-or-the-other) equipped with a X2 4200+ (IMO - practically the same as the 3800+) to get a much-needed LAN on, and it was so fast, there was literally nothing on the desktop it couldn't do in what seemed twice as fast as what i'm used to. I was overjoyed with the way it handled a game (not being a game machine to start with) right out of the box. This thing could attain 45fps solidly (think Halo on xbox) @ 800x600 Med. -it was very acceptable considering his Radeon Express 200G integrated graphics, and how even with 1GB less ram (running 2GB in my rescue rig right now), it was still able to beat my trusty ol' P4 by two seconds loading CSS maps (perhaps just an attribute of the fresh 250GB SATA II HDD he was running over my aging SATA-150 120GB).
I think you're gonna be very satisfied with the X2 processor. I know I am..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131541

My friend has this board and he likes it. I kind of have the same board but is an ABIT AV8 3rd eye.