Please give upgrade advice!!

[JoeBob]

I have an Asus A7V133 rev 1.04 that Asus says will not accept an Athlon XP. :| My question is whether or not it is worth it to upgrade from my 200Mhz Thunderbird 900 to a 266Mhz 1.2 or 1.33. I don't think that going to an XP is worth a new motherboard and processor so I am trying to get the most out of this board until the next Gen comes. Would it be worth it and what type of improvement do you think I might get. Thanks in advance for you advice.

 

[PCHPlayer]

First of all, what are you using your computer for? If you just surf the web and use MS Office type stuff, the answer is NO. If you want to squeeze every possible frame out of Quake III, or you do some heavy video work, or software development the answer is YES. Of course if you have money just burning a hole in your pocket you could get a new motherboard, memory and CPU, then you could go with the Athlon XP.

 

[JoeBob]

Sorry, should have given more info. I play games reqularly, currently Sacrifice, Black and White, Half Life, Civ III. Also do quite a bit of still digital photography and scanning using Photoshop. I have enough money for a CPU upgrade or motherboard upgrade, not both. I also want to upgrade to a G-Force Ti200 soon and want enough CPU and FSB to maximize the new card.

Thunderbird 900 200Mhz Fsb
Ausus A7V133 Rev 1.04
256 Meg PC133 Crucial Ram
Radeon LE
SoundBlaster Value

 

[PCHPlayer]

Well let's look at this from a practical standpoint.
100 Mhz -> 133 Mhz memory bus = 33% increase
200 Mhz -> 266 Mhz FSB = 33% increase
900 Mhz -> 1.2 Ghz CPU = 33% increase
Disk subsystem = 0% increase
ATI video -> GEForce = ? increase (check video card review sites).

And the answer is.... I would think you would see a 15 - 25% increase in office apps and maybe 20 - 30% in games (with the new video card).
The increase would be noticable and probably worth the ~$90 that the 1.2 would cost you. Going with the 1.33 or the 1.4 would give you a bit more bang, but at the cost of the extra bucks. That is your call.