Socket 754 MSI AGP...Should I upgrade mobo?

I am currently running a 2005 rig, MSI - K8T Neo FIS2R motherboard with a 3400+ clawhammer core ( 1mb of L2 can't live with any less). I would like to creep into the now by getting a pci-e board which would be the Epox EP-9NPA+SLI, as ive read that just about every other pci-e socket 754 board is crap. I found 1 on the internet used for 50 bucks total on ebay. I'm pretty sure my buddy will give me one of his pci-e cards as he just upgraded. Should i get the motherboard or just save my money and go dual or quad eventually. Before i hang up the socket 754 to dry, i wanna see a gpu on it where the processor is the bottleneck, maybe even see a game play in 1080p fluidly. So any suggestions are appreciated...or if someone has this Epox EP-9NPA+SLI laying around and they want to get rid of it i'd be happy to pay to take it off your hands, i just dont know if i wanted to pay 50 bucks for a used mobo that will work for who knows how long. Thanks

I wouldn't put any more money into your system. Sell off the parts in one of the online classifieds. Anandtech's is the best. Black friday is only a few weeks away if you live in the states; frys has some good closeouts right now, but it's in the stores only.

yeah wouldnt bother doing anything with that machine - too old, its DDR1 - seriously

btw 1mb L2 cache is kinda meaningless, for future reference an extra ~150mhz is usually all it takes to beat a chip with more cache is most cases, THG did an article showing just how meaningless the extra cache in a Phenom II is compared to a Athlon X4 most of the time (same chip with less cache).

ill keep it for flashing 360's and so my niece has something nice to play spore on. i know that socket 754 was dead long ago and that any money into it is futile. but this was my first cpu that i built from the ground up back when i was upgrading from piss pour celerons w/ 128 kb of l2 cache. so yea it still holds a special place in my heart but that is not enough for me to even throw 50 bucks down the drain. i was thinking of going phenom quad 945 or so and i guess gigabyte seems to be the mobo best suited. probably end up costing me about as much as i paid to build this four years ago. besides i still laugh at my friends 939 w/ 512 l2 cache (aion runs at like 22 fps bottlenecked by his processor...lol) thanks for the replies to help me settle on one choice. BTW dinosaur in my mind is a 486 - 66 mghz which is what i had to endure for way too long as a child, and im only 22. if you hadn't noticed i don't spend very much on my pc needs as next-gen consoles have been feeding my gaming addiction for the past couple years. it just didn't make much since to me to upgrade anything on my pc for the past 3 years but now that i can get decent graphics without breaking the bank ill go ahead and build a new pc this fall.

dinosaur to me was the ibm pcjr I had... it had a 8088@4.77mhz, dual 360k floppies and a optional 500$ 10MB hdd.

oh and 128k of ram.. yes 128k