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Upgrade CPU or Video Card?

S

Stug

Member
I have a 1.4 ghz Athlon T-Bird running on an Abit Kt7a with 256 megs of pc133 ram and a 32meg Geforce2mx. Recently, I've been looking to upgrade my videocard, but a friend who is more knowledgeable about these things told me my motherbaord/cpu may not be able to provide a newer videocard with the power it needs. Right now, I'm looking at a Radeon 9500pro. So my question is, should I upgrade my motherboard and CPU before my videocard, or should I go for a less powerful video card? I figure I'll probably upgrade the CPU in the next year or so anyway, but I think I'd like to put a new graphics card in, first.
 
You'll notice a much larger jump upgrading your graphics card than you will if you upgrade your CPU. A T-Bird 1.4 is still quite a nippy beast and you'll be fine with any current games using that CPU and a 9500pro. I would recommend getting another 256Mb ram as well since PC133 is so cheap at the moment.
 
Get some more RAM and any new Graphics card. Your MoBo is compliant with AGP 2.0 so all the major cards should work with it.
The CPU is well enough juice for at least another year.

Sincerely


/Matt
 
just get a new vidcard ... radeon 9500 pro would be nice ... or maybe like a Geforce 4 ti4200 if you want to spend less ...
 
Power won't be a problem with the 9700pro because it draws power straight from the PSU. You will get a definite boost using such a high power card but your ram/mobo will limit it somewhat.
 
Would I see any appreciable improvement upgrading my GF3 Ti200 on the system below?

EDIT: I primarily play Day of Defeat, Battlefield 1942 and a little Counter-Strike.

Thanks.
 
You'd see a noticeable improvement going to even a Ti4200.
A 9500pro or any 9700 would make quite a large difference.

That said, the ti200 isn't a slouch by any means. I'd hold on for a bit if I were you - prices may well drop when the next big thing comes along (mentioning no names 😉)
 
Wood - Cool - thanks for the advice. I'll certainly wait for the next big thing (actually I haven't been following vid cards so I don't know what that is 😱 ) and pass my vid card off to a friend...
 
Originally posted by: spartacuskzm
Wood - Cool - thanks for the advice. I'll certainly wait for the next big thing (actually I haven't been following vid cards so I don't know what that is 😱 ) and pass my vid card off to a friend...
Click to expand...

"next big thing" = geForce FX or R350
 
When are the nv30 boards scheduled to come out? If it's any time soon, I'll just wait for those and then nab a 9700.
 
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