Upgrade worth it?

[bhilimon]

I hope someone can give me some insight here about a upgrade. My computer is about 3 years old now. The main specs are...

P4 2.4 gig (Northwood, I think)
1 gig ddr
ATI 9800 PRO, AGP

I am looking to upgrade my video card because I can not afford to build out a whole new PCIx system. I was thinking of the BFG 7800GS since, from what I've read, it's the best that will probably ever be available for an AGP system.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814143046

My current setup runs World of Warcraft most of the time, anywhere from 10-70 FPS depending on the area, occasionally some HL2 or UT2004. Worlds in the WoW expansion are much more complex and detailed I'm going to need a little more power. As far as other games go, I remember getting around 30 FPS in HL2 and Doom3, 2 years ago, probably 1024x768. As you can see I don't play that many recent games

So the question is how big would the upgrade be? It's hard to find anything comparing a 3 year old system and card to a 1 year old system and card. Any advice would be awesome. Can this card get me by for another year or so?

Thanks

 

[geekcomputing]

its worth it and it will last you over a year.

better to get it and then about in 1 year pick up a nice quad core cpu.

 

[TheRapture]

That 7800GS should give you a nice boost, considering that my son's X800 XTPE runs about the same as that 7800GS. And the X800 series rocked all over that 9800 Pro.

My old SFF rig I sold to a good buddy is still running a 9800 Pro and I can tell you it is painful in any modern game at this point...his is a 3ghz P4 (northwood), 1gb DDR, and the 9800 Pro, and my son's AMD64 3000+ 2ghz machine with 1gb DDR and an X800 XTPE beats it like a bad stepchild....


Get the 7800GS and enjoy quite a bit more IQ and speed....