Geforce 3 + Athlon 500 or Geforce 2 MX + Athlon 800/900?

[Phoenixhunter]

I have a MSI K7 Pro (MS-6195) motherboard with an Athlon 500 and 256mb of PC-100 SDRAM and an aging Voodoo 3 3000 and I am debating my next upgrade. The motherboard only supports a max of AGP 2x, not 4x.

Essentially I would like some feedback from people with lower end systems like mine on whether or not the Geforce 3 takes enough "burden" off the processor that I would get decent framerates without a bottleneck. If so, I would probably upgrade to either Slot A Athlon 800 or 900 depending on availability.

The third option would be to just wait and go with a next gen AMD motherboard chipset and the Athlon MP CPU but I'm kind of looking for a "now" solution for this summer's LAN parties.

Thanks in advance.

 

[dew042]

i tend to think that the geoforce 3 would have your 500mhz processor as the new bottleneck.

although I don't have much to back that opinion up..🙂 i'd rather have a faster processor personally.

good luck.

 

[tigerbait]

I'd definitely go with the faster processor.

 

[Blayze]

another vote for the faster processor, or you could get a duron and a new motherboard, plus a Radeon LE or a Geforce 2 MX.

I would personally get a Duron (750mhz+), Motherboard, and a Radeon LE (overclock it to DDR speeds and enable hyperZ).

 

[FordLorider]

fastest processor your budget will allow!

 

[3putt]

one more for faster processor... mx is a good card until u get up to high rez 1024 runs fine

 

[ksallen]

<< I would personally get a Duron (750mhz+), Motherboard, and a Radeon LE (overclock it to DDR speeds and enable hyperZ). >>



I agree totally. Took the words right out of my mouth.

 

[Scouzer]

Another vote on a Duron... good upgradibility in the future...just try and get a motherboard that is also Palamino compatible!

 

[Courtland]

I have my gf3 and I am still waiting on an athlon 1.4ghz for my new rig, I chiped the original cpus core ( Anyway, I have the gf3 in my p2 450, and I can deff say I would rather have a Duron 900 than w/ a geforce 2, than this current setup.

 

[BFG10K]

Faster processor + Radeon LE.

 

[billyjak]

A faster processor for now, the voodoo3 should be sufficient.
I have one on my 700 Athlon and it still runs all games fine.
I would get a new motherboard socket A Combo with pc 133 ram and sell your old setup so the new upgrade won't really be that much. If you buy the motherboard combo and pc 133 ram it will only cost as much as a GF3.
Then get the GF3 latter as it runs better with a faster processor.

 

[Snoop]

I agree with billyjak, the voodoo is still fine in most games. For the same money as a geforce 3 ~350, you could get a IWILL KK266 for around 107 from newegg and a 1.2 Athlon from newegg for around 105. Shoot, you still have another hundred bucs to get a MSI StarForce 831, GeForce2 Pro, 64MB DDR for 140

To sum it up:
Geforce 3 around 350
or
Athlon 1200 266 105
Iwill KK266 107
Geforce 2 PRO 64 140
=370 with shipping