Upgrade ideas?

[Mermaidman]

Current setup:
Abit NF7-s
Barton@2.0 GHz
512MB
BFG 6800 (plain)
Antec True 380W PS

I do play a lot of FPSs, and was wondering what is a cost-effective upgrade path. New CPU is my guess. More RAM? New video card? Don't wanna build another PC at this point. tia

 

[Zap]

Problem with your system is that to bring it to "current" you'd have to replace motherboard, add RAM, replace CPU, replace video card, replace power supply.

New video card is the usual route for better 3D gaming performance, but I'd hesitate to recommend one for AGP. The switch to PCIe may be costly.

One possible route: If RAM is one stick of PC3200, get a second matching stick. Get the ASRock board that has both PCIe and AGP, and continue using your video card for now. Get a socket 939 A64 CPU. You may or may not need a new power supply.

Second possible route: If RAM is one stick of PC3200, get a second matching stick. Get a socket 754 motherboard with Nforce4 chipset and PCIe. Get a socket 754 Sempron CPU. Get a new PCIe video card such as 7800GT.

 

[Mermaidman]

Thanks. I had no idea there was a good AGP+PCI-e mobo out there, and the ASRock looks like a good option.

 

[Zap]

Yup, it's the ONLY decent one on the market. AFAIK none of the other combo PCIe/AGP boards have "real" AGP - they all run an AGP slot off the PCI bus thus lowering performance and compatibility.

 

[Heckler 5th]

MM, what is your budget?

 

[klocwerk]

Yup, you're at the point that I was just at.
Time to bite the bullet and move to a PCI-e solution.