Need Help with Upgrading my PC.

[TheKeyboardDemon]

Currently:
Athlon 3200 CPU (Barton core, 32bit, 400mhz FSB)
1gb Ram (2x 512 DDR 400mhz)
nVidia 6600 128mb AGP x8 Graphics card
Asus A7N8X Deluxe Motherboard

What I'm looking to do is upgrade as cheaply as possible so I want to keep my existing RAM etc.
Add a good hard drive probly around 300gb+.

Looking for an Intel E6600 core 2 duo
A motherboard that will support my RAM and AGP graphics card so that later I can upgrade to a good PCI-Express when funding allows.

So I really need to know of a full size ATX motherboard that will allow me to do this, if anyone has any suggestions they would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[sneakyneil]

There are some Asrock boards that have both AGP and PCI-X on them, and take DDR1 memory. I'd have a look around their site.

[robbieduncan]

PCI-X is not PCI Express. They are totally different incompatible standards.

[sneakyneil]

robbieduncan said:

PCI-X is not PCI Express. They are totally different incompatible standards.

Sorry, PCI Express is what I meant.

[TheKeyboardDemon]

I thought that PCI-X and PCI-Express were the same thing. What's the difference?

[ThePassenger]

TheKeyboardDemon said:

I thought that PCI-X and PCI-Express were the same thing. What's the difference?

PCI-E and PCI-X are two different standards. As far as I remember (not investigated) one ended up in high end server boards.

[TheKeyboardDemon]

So far it looks like this is the likely motherboard.

SOCKET 775-3 (ASRock 775 DUAL 880 PRO) MOTHERBOARD.

It say that it supports Intel Dual Core Processors (Extreme Edition / Pentium D) so I just need to confirm that that includes the E6600 CPUs and of course find an E6600 CPU at a good price.

All (sensible!!!) suggestions welcome as always.