To upgrade or not to upgrade?

[morulis]

I have a PC with 1GB RAM, AMD64 3000+, X800XL. I use it mainly to play games. But new games like Company of Heroes, Gothic 3 , etc make my PC to use medium or low settings to play without lagging. I design to increase the memory from 1 to 4GB and to buy a new graphics card like X1600 or 7600. Am I going to see a real difference in performance, about 50%?

 

[FreedomGUNDAM]

4GB of RAM would be overkill right now. The limiting factors are the A64 3000+ processer and the video card.

What kinda budget are u working with?

What motherboard are u using?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

2GB and then a better videocard would probably be a better bet.

Dual core AMDs are also quite cheap now and might also be a good idea.

Are you on S939 and PCI-e?

 

[Boyo]

4GB of RAm is overkill. I would upgrade to 2GB of RAM, try a new video card......maybe try a 7950 GTX.

 

[betasub]

"To not upgrade is to downgrade"

... well, this a hardware forum

 

[morulis]

Originally posted by: Boyo
4GB of RAm is overkill. I would upgrade to 2GB of RAM, try a new video card......maybe try a 7950 GTX.

I have a Antec 380W PSU is this going to support a 7950GTX?
You also all said that 4GB is an overkill. Who believed that the minimum amount of memory for today's computers would be 1GB.

I want a cheap upgrade which will going to offer me the ability to play games like Gothic 3 , Company of heroes etc without lagging. The impact of the CPU is not very big in the performance.

 

[morulis]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
2GB and then a better videocard would probably be a better bet.

Dual core AMDs are also quite cheap now and might also be a good idea.

Are you on S939 and PCI-e?

Yes I have S939 and PCI-e. My mobo is GIGABYTE GA-K8NF-9.

 

[AstroGuardian]

try 2 Gb of memory and an Gigabyte Radeon x1600PRO vga card since your mobo is Gigabyte. But i also think that your CPU is rather slow.

 

[morulis]

Originally posted by: AstroGuardian
try 2 Gb of memory and an Gigabyte Radeon x1600PRO vga card since your mobo is Gigabyte. But i also think that your CPU is rather slow.

Will this offer real increase in performance? In the recommend requirements of Gothic 3 says that Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz or equivalent is good. Isn't it equivalent the Athlon 64 3000+ with P4 3.0 GHz?

 

[archcommus]

I just posted a very similar thread asking about when to upgrade and I have a very similar system to you, only I have a 3200+ and a different motherboard. I will be checking in on these replies.