In Need of some Upgrade Advice........

[Yum]

Well..erm hey..... been ages since i posted on Anandtech, think the last time was the first few weeks of my first year at uni, and im now about to start my 3rd year!

As a result im well out of the loop on anything to do with computer hardware etc. It has come to that time where my PC is in dire need of an upgrade, i have no idea of what to buy, so much new stuff has been released since i last looked at any of the hardware sites, and its rather confusing.... so please HELP


The basics of my rather old and dated rig:

1800 Athlon XP
ECS K7S5A (don't know what release of this model it is)
2 x generic 256mb ddr 2100
64MB Geforce 2 mx 400 (yes i know...........)
i have good enough Sound and a LAN cards, so no intergrated sound or lan is needed.

im looking to stick a cheapish radeon in place of the geforce2, but as for the rest im farily puzzled, but advice on any of these components would be appreciated.

i put the challenge to ya guys n gals.....

oh and to make it a little harder, im working on quite a limited budget, maybe £300 max, and i wanna squeeze as much extra power out of this piece of s**t as possible for as little dollar as possible

Thx ppl

 

[Cannabis]

What is the primary use of the compter?

 

[Yum]

Well it has been used for just writing up reports and assignments over the last couple of years, probably why i didn't notice any performance issues. I've recently got the internet back, and i am gonna be running this rig as the internet gateway and web server for my house, plus i have started playing gaems more often now. With all these extra systems and software running, i have really noticed performance issues when i play games.

I may also start using it to decode/encode audio-visual files in the not so distant future.

 

[Arcanedeath]

The cheapest way to upgrade that PC would prob. be to get a 9800Pro and 1GB of memory or a 9600Pro if the 9800 won't fit in the budget.

 

[ponyo]

I say all you really need is new videocard. I would just get something like 9600 pro and call it a day.

 

[Yum]

Well i have spotted a Radeon 9600xt, been told thats a good card, and its about £100, so i figure i'll get that, but i'd like to get a new cpu and motherboard if possible, as i think these are holding me back a little, surely the radeon would be held back by the motherboard at least.

 

[Yum]

*Bump*

 

[Markfw]

I vote for the 9800pro and more memory. If you have 2x256, then you till need to get 2x512. What is £300 in us $ $450 ?? Then you shoud be able to do that. If you had any extra, I would get an XP2400 and stick in there also.About $60 more ??

 

[Cannabis]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
I vote for the 9800pro and more memory.

Agreed.