Looking for best $60 upgrade, video or CPU?

[jim620]

My brother in law currently is running an Athlon 700 with Geforce 2 Pro video card. He wants to upgrade but has about $60. Question is which would be a better upgrade for games:

1. Purchase a new AMD 1800+ CPU with Motherboard and still use the GF2 Pro

or

2. Purchase a new video card say Geforce 3 or Radeon 9100 and still use the AMD 700.

Thanks.

 

[Naffer]

For $60 you can probably find a Geforce4 Ti 4200 (avoid the MX cards like the plauge) on ebay.
But in your situation the faster CPU would probably be a better investment.

 

[modedepe]

I'd upgrade the cpu and mobo. But, if you need ram for it too you'll have trouble keeping it under $60.

 

[pelikan]

I'd get that Fry's deal on the cpu/mobo combo for about $60. Then save for a video card. And I agree about the ti4200.

 

[Schadenfroh]

i would say get a athlon xp 1700 (TbredB) for around 40 and o/c the heck out of it

 

[JammingJay]

Get a new cpu & mb if you had to choose between the two.

 

[GreatDaleness]

Originally posted by: jim620
My brother in law currently is running an Athlon 700 with Geforce 2 Pro video card. He wants to upgrade but has about $60. Question is which would be a better upgrade for games:

1. Purchase a new AMD 1800+ CPU with Motherboard and still use the GF2 Pro

or

2. Purchase a new video card say Geforce 3 or Radeon 9100 and still use the AMD 700.

Thanks.

I don't understand how you would get a CPU/MB combo when the CPU goes for around $60 (retail) by itself. THat said, it completely depends on the type of games he wants to play as half are CPU bound and half are video bound. A 700 wit a GF2 sounds perfectly balanced, so either path you go will point you to one genre of games.

 

[modedepe]

Originally posted by: GreatDaleness

I don't understand how you would get a CPU/MB combo when the CPU goes for around $60 (retail) by itself.

Ever heard of fry's? They regularly sell 1800+ and a cheap ecs mobo combo for about $60.

 

[GullyFoyle]

I'm sure there are plenty of people that are not from the west coast, and have never heard of Fry's.