New Rig or Upgrade my current one?

[Rogue5]

OK, here's what I currently have

AMD XP2400+
512 MB PC2100 RAM
GeForce 3 Ti200

350 Watt PSU


my main concerns in the next year or so would be the ability to play Half Life 2 and Dungeon Siege at 1024*768 with all or most of the bells and/or whistles... Maybe some Doom3 in there too.

My original plan was to build a new system with one of the new 64 bit AMDs. as I do some research I'm starting to wonder if I should just get another 512 Mb of RAM and an ATI 9800 Pro.

and now I'm reading about PCI Express... with that coming on the market soon I don't feel that building a top-notch AGP-based system is the best type of investment.

I guess the decision-maker would be if you guys think I'll be able to run the games mentioned with some nifty details with my current setup along with the additional RAM and the new 9800 Pro.
Also, would this all work with a 350 Watt PSU? would a 9800 pro take much more power?

Thanks

 

[NelsonMuntz]

Originally posted by: Rogue5
as I do some research I'm starting to wonder if I should just get another 512 Mb of RAM and an ATI 9800 Pro.

That's what I suggest you do and then build a new beast when all the new technologies (PCI Express, BTX, etc) have settled down some.

 

[AristoV300]

AGP based video cards will still be around for a while, even after PCI express takes off. If you are going with A64 I would wait for the next chipset that comes out that takes unregistered memory unlike the current ones. Now that the new R420 ATI cards are coming out the 9800Pro and XT should be getting alot cheaper. If you go pro get the 256meg version. If you are feeling bold you can flash the bios of the pro to a XT and get the same results since they are pretty much the same card these days. 1 gig of memory is what you will need for the new games now.

 

[JSSheridan]

I recommend getting another 512MB of memory and watch the video card market. No one really can say when HL2 will be released, and it is possible that there will be another set of flagship model video cards released before its release. Peace.

 

[3chordcharlie]

yeah, buy some ram if you find a decent price, and keep an eye on the video card market.

A nice heat sink should let you get a little more out of your cpu as well if you're interested in overclocking - assuming it is a Tbred-b chip, you may get it up to 2600 or even 2800 speeds with some luck and a good fan.

 

[Slink3r]

If it's at all possible I would jump up to a 2500+. I was using a 2400+ for a long time and once I upgraded to a 2500+ my system was much nicer, and it would score much higher on all benchmarks that I ran, and I could feel the system going faster.

I agree, even when Pci-express comes out, I doubt it will immediately dominate the market, so you should be safe with AGP For a while longer.