Help with a tricky motherboard upgrade

[Madhattersi]

Hello all, as a favour to a friend who is short of funds I have undertaken the task of mending her pc during which I have discovered that her graphics card is fried and motherboard faulty.

I have a spare Sapphire HD3850 but unfortunately this is only compatible with a PCI-E slot.

The current faulty motherboard is a Socket A type - K7 Triton Gigabyte - GA-7VT600 - FSB 400 - DDR400+ - AGP8x.

What type of affordable (cheap!) motherboard could you recommend that I should upgrade to which will accomodate the current DDR 400 ram and Socket A CPU alongside a PCI-E graphics card?

Thanks for your time and help.

[The New Normal]

I don't think they made a PCI-E Socket A motherboard, sorry.

Unfortunately, to use your GFX card I think you'll need a mobo with a different socket, and this means a new CPU as well.

To add salt, on a quick search I only found 1 mobo with one of the newer sockets (AM2+ & 775) that supports DDR400. That' s this Asrock board which only has 4x PCI-E and as such probably won't support your GFX card anyway.

On my quick look, it seems you might need a CPU, MOBO and RAM to use that GFX. Hopefully I've missed something..

[jermaghs07]

You might try searching ebay or something and try to find a replacement mobo for that specific computer. i think normal is right, i don't think they make a mobo that supports a new CPU and DDR 400.

[Madhattersi]

thanks guys. I managed to locate a new mobo on ebay which included a fitted cpu, ram and a PCI-E slot. Sorted - it needed upgrading anyway.

[The New Normal]

Good work :)

I only recently upgraded my poor old socket-A and AGP; I'm so glad I did.