video or cpu upgrade?

[roberttran]

I have an AMD duron 950 system with 256megs of ram and a voodoo 3 16 meg card.
When I play high res divx movies, the systems lags and the video gets choppy. The cpu does go up to 100%. Does the video card do any work in divx decoding? Would I notice an increase in performance if I got lets say a GeForce FX5200 or an AMD 1.2ghz. Which one should I prioritize? I don't think ram is an issue since the meter never goes to max. If its the cpu, is it becuase the duron is missing an FPU that causes it to do FP calcs with bruteforce?

Thanks,
Robert

 

[Doubl3KiLL]

Are you running XP? Im going to go with CPU on this one. Also, a video upgrade seems to be in the making for you. RAM... meh... it couldnt hurt your video performance... and Im sure it would help out if you got more.

 

[YoUnAn]

Im going to say to go for a CPU/MB upgrade.

 

[Foxcow]

Id go for a CPU and ram upgrade. What OS are you running. If its XP, you definately need more RAM

 

[Wixard]

Check your board to see what it can handle max. If it can go 1.4ghz+ then id get a duron (whatever is the max your board can handle) a new video card, something like a radeon 9000, or 9200SE, and more ram.

The ram id check first on local pc stores, they may have some used stuff. On that note a local store may have a system pull duron or athlon they have cheap.

 

[darktiger]

I would go with a CPU/MB/Ram upgrade.

 

[Mikesta]

I say a ram/motherboard/cpu upgrade that not might be as much as you think if you just get a cheap amd xp set up wont cost more then 200-250 for a good one.

 

[kronchev]

Get in this order:

* Barton 2500+ (theyre only 80)
* ATi anything higher than 9200
* at least an extra 256 RAM.