I posted a thread about computer upgrades ages ago in the Help! Forum. But it appears that the game that I upgraded my computer for, which is coming out in a couple of weeks, requires much higher specs than I first thought. I want to be able to play this game on the hioghest settings, with a decent frame-rate.

The game is "Medieval 2: Total War".

So, I'm wondering if any of you have any advice for computer upgrades. Here's my current system:

Motherboard: ASUS A8V AGP Socket939
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Socket939 2.0Ghz
GPU: ATI Radeon 9600pro 256MB AGP
Memory: approx. 1.5GB DDR RAM (I'm not sure if my ram is DDR or DDR2)


This game is way more CPU-intensive than GPU-intensive, I've decided to splash out and purchase the following:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Dual-Core SocketAM2 2.6Ghz
GPU: GEForce 7600GT 256MB PCIe

The CPU is pretty high-end and should give me heaps of processing power, whereas the GPU is a good value graphics card which shouldn't cost me too muich, but should be able to allow me to crank up all the graphics settings to high. In this game, the CPU does Most of the work, so that's the main focus of the upgrade. I should also get a few years out of my CPU before it becomes outdated.

Because I'm changing to PCIe and SocketAM2, I'm going to need a new motherboard. But, I know absolutely NOTHING about motherboards. So, ANY advice here would be appreciated.

I will also probably need a new power supply (My current one is 300W) So what should I be looking for?

Also, what about RAM? I'm not sure if my current RAM is DDR or DDR2, how does this change what I should do about RAM?



Thank you in advance for ANY advice you guys can give me.