New Video Card on an aging system

[fredbeard]

I'm running an AMD Athlon 2700+ with 2.5gb ddr333 RAM and a Radeon 9700pro vid card. I'm shopping for another card because the Radeon's about ready to die and I'd like to stretch this system out another 18 or so months. I'm still debating on this as well because I'd really like to upgrade to an new system all together but I've another habit/hobby (homebrewing my own beer) that I'm spending more money on at the moment.......mmmmm fresh beer. So I did some shopping and saw the 128bit and 256bit interfaces. With the aging system will the 256bit interface really make a difference? I'm not a huge gamer / vdeophile but when I play HL2/WoW I'd like the experience to be worth it. BTW I'm also buying a 22" flat screen with this upgrade.

Thanks for reading.

 

[MarcVenice]

I think that pretty much anything you buy with a 256bit memory bus will be severely bottlenecked by your CPU. And you've picked just the games for a nice CPU bottleneck, WoW and a source based game, HL2.

A decent upgrade, with a e2180, cheap mobo for like $60, 2gb ram for $35 and a 8800gs or HD3850 will do wonders and only cost like $230 or so?

 

[Ares202]

Yeh just save for a full upgrade like mark said, that cpu is not really up to the task for modern games

 

[fredbeard]

My system has always been able to run very smooth playing HL2/WoW and even Doom III it just seems as though the Radeon's going south. Are you saying don't waste the money period? Not even on a new - let's say - 512/128bit card? The 512 and 256 cards with 128bit buses are a lot cheaper. Starting over on a new system isn't a bad idea but I just don't have the time to create it. (2 kids/a business/studies....etcetera) I have my replacement desktop 'shopped' but am waiting till I can pay cash for it. I'm still open to building a new box but not excited about it.

 

[bryanW1995]

as mark said, you can get a truly kickass system right now for next to nothing. sell your old ram/cpu/mobo/vid card and you probably won't be out more than $150 or so. you should DEFINITELY do the system upgrade before getting the new monitor btw.

 

[fredbeard]

Ok I may be sold on the 'upgrade' even though I swore I'd never go through the hassle again lol.
Since I have everyones attention let me ask what everyone thinks of this and if it will run Vista Ultimate. I have a copy so no need to buy it.

• SAPPHIRE 100226L Radeon HD 3850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16

• 2gb Corsair ddr2 800

• GIGABYTE GA-G31M-S2L LGA 775 Intel G31 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

• The e2180 above

I'm betting I'll need 4gb o'Ram correct?

edit: ha so I added 2/2gb Kingston ddr2800 and dropped the corsair and saved some cash.