Kinda lost...

S

Sloth

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 26, 2005
Messages
147
Hi everyone, recently I have gathered some money, so I have decided to do a little upgrading. I have around 150-200$.

My rig:

AMD Athlon XP 1800 OC'ed to 2.0ghz
ATI Radeon 9200 SE
512MB of some no name pc 2100
2 40gb Western Digital HDs
MSI Kt700 MoBo

I am wondering what would be the most cost effective upgrade that won't create a huge bottle neck. My ram and video card seem to be whats holding me back.

As for ram I am looking at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145505. Does anyone think that will give me a significant increase? I figure I'll stay with my videocard until around christmas when I can get what ever top of the line card is out. Then I'll upgrade to PCIE, and A64. Does the ram look like a good decision, or would I be better off going with a 6600GT or something. I am a big CS:Source, and HL2: DM player. I run everything at low to get max FPS. I get around 60-70FPS. I figure if I get a nice Videocard the ram will hold it back.

As for videocards my local Compusa has AGP Radeon x700s for 200.00. If I just got the card, and kept my ram would I still be able to increase detail and gain more FPS? As the ram is a lot cheaper than the videocard, I could upgrade the ram in a few months. If I got the vga would I be dissapointed?

As it is now, my computer is pretty fast, it's just the graphics, and FPS that suck. So in essence what would give me more FPS some uber ram or a videocard?

Sorry for the long thread. Thanks for any input!
 
I would suggest saving up and getting a new mobo, CPU, RAM and vid card at the same time. More than likely you will end up having to get a new vid card with the mobo anyway since it will probably be PCI-E. That would mean the money you spent on the vid card now would be somewhat wasted.

I would say your biggest bottleneck would be the current vid card, though. I don't think that thing can even outperform my Radeon 8500 and that's sad. The CPU is holding you back some also, but if you look at what you have you will see that everything is going to become a bottleneck no matter what small part you upgrade right now. This is one of the main reasons I haven't upgraded my vid card.

I want to go with a dual core Athlon part but it would be a waste to get another AGP card right now if I'm going to be switching to a PCI-E mobo before too long. Actually, it doesn't really matter because I don't have the money to upgrade anything right now. But this is just my opinion.

 
Yeah, thats how I feel also. It would take me a long time to save up for everything so thats kinda out of the question. I think I might just have to go with the ram, and that way I can use it for a while on my A64 system.

Thanks for helping.
 
BTW, is that Athlon XP 1800+ really a Duron 1.8 GHz? Because the Duron 1.8 GHz is really a reconfigured Athlon XP 2200+. In that case, changing processor might not be too urgent. Then you could go with 6600 GT and no new processor instead of XP 2600+ & 9800 Pro.
 
Well, CPUZ says its an Athlon Xp with a barton core. I have an odd feeling I can oc it a bit more.


Ah I think I am going to make the transition from ATI to Nvidia.

**shivers**

Whats a better value a X700 or 6600GT?
 
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