Is my video card my bottleneck?

[Kipa]

My box is about a year old. More and more I'm having to reduce all my video performance settings in order to have good game play. What do you think my bottleneck is and where would you invest $200-400 to improve performance? Thanks in advance and here's my box (all stock settings - no O/C):

Pentium4 2.8C
Asus P4C800-E Dlx
2x512 CORSAIR XMS PC 3200 TWINX1024-3200LL
ATI Radeon 9800Pro 128
Seagate 7200.7 120GB H/D
Antec Sonata

Thanks,
Kipa

 

[Waylay00]

I would upgrade video card first, then CPU.

 

[coomar]

Originally posted by: Waylay00
I would upgrade video card first, then CPU.

yeah you'll get a lot more from a gpu upgrade

 

[RussianSensation]

2.8C overclock to 3.4ghz +. I would suggest for you to do that.

Get 6800GT for $300 AGP. However, given that Geforce 7 will be announced (and possibly retail) in 8 days, just wait to see if:

1) a $300 geforce 7 derivative is faster than 6800GT
2) if prices on current cards drop a little bit (also maybe x800xl agp will drop to $250?)

Your videocard is BY FAR the major bottleneck. Please see here:

P4 3.2ghz X800/6800 series vs. P4 3.2ghz 9800xt

 

[Kipa]

Thanks for replies and the link (great reading). Looks like I'm probably fine on memory, could use an O/C on my processor, but definatley need a new video card.

Kipa