upgrade

[misanthropy]

I have an old Dell 8250 with a P4 2.4GHz 533FSB CPU, 9700TX GPU (which is basically a lower-clocked 9700), 4* AGP motherboard, and 2*256 RDRAM (PC1066 [EXPENSIVE to upgrade!]). Although the PSU on it is marked as 250Watts or so, it is better than what you would expect. It is not proprietery, and works with 9800s and 6600s quite well, or so I have heard.

I plan on making a serious upgrade when Longhorn and the socket M2 AMD processors come out. For now, with a three hundred dollar budget, what would you upgrade, or is it even worth it with my platform? I play Halo, UT2004, and Counter-Strike: Source--it's basically all I'm able to play. With Halo I have to run it at 800*600. I'd like to be able to play at 1024*768, which is what I use for CS:S. And yes, I have my computer reasonably well optimized on the software side.

 

[Harvey]

I wouldn't try to upgrade that system. The power supply is way too small. You may be able to get a better system for less money, overall, by selling the entire working system and bulding a better one from well chosen components.

 

[stevty2889]

Hmm, well a video card upgrad would help the most with games, but you won't be able to re-use an AGP video card with M2 since it will use PCIe(although Asrock may put out a board that will do it). 6600GT would be a nice improvment over your current video card should be able to run at at least 1024x768 with it, but up to you weather you think it's worth the upgrade. Like you said, RDRAM is rediculously expensive, so wouldn't upgrade there, and a CPU upgrade wouldn't make much sense either.

 

[misanthropy]

Harvey, how much do you think I could get for my currect system?

stevty, how much of a bottleneck do you think my processor would be for a 6600GT?