What should I upgrade if I want to play current released games?

[tracerit]

I plan on playing games like Gears of War, UT3, Starcraft 2 (once it's released), Supreme Commander, Crysis (lol), Call of Duty 4, etc but my current system is not going to handle any of those games. This is what I have now:

Pentium D 930 3Ghz LGA775
Old ECS AGP mobo
OCZ DDR2 800 2 GB (2x1GB)
Radeon 9000 64MB AGP


I've done some reading, and it seems the nVidia 8800 GT is THE card to get. So aside from that, I'll need a new CPU and mobo. So my budget is around 200 for the vidcard, 100 for the mobo, and 100-250 for the CPU which comes out to around 400-550. I'm thinking about just using the Pentium D 930, but will that limit what the 8800 GT can do?

With Intel's next gen CPU Nelahem being released about a year from now, I dont' know if I should:

A. spend as little as I can now to play the games I want to and upgrade again
B. spend as much as I need on parts now that will still be ok 1-2 years from now.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: tracerit
I've done some reading, and it seems the nVidia 8800 GT is THE card to get. So aside from that, I'll need a new CPU and mobo. So my budget is around 200 for the vidcard, 100 for the mobo, and 100-250 for the CPU which comes out to around 400-550. I'm thinking about just using the Pentium D 930, but will that limit what the 8800 GT can do?

Welcome to anandtech. 8800GT's are ~$300, when you can find them. And yeah, any Pentium will hold back that 8800GT, including the new C2D-based Pentiums. BTW, Supreme Commander's performance depends more on your processor than your video card, but Crysis is much more dependent on a fast video card. At least you could reuse that PC6400 RAM. Oh, you're gonna need a new power supply, also.

 

[Blain]

Your Radeon 9000 64MB is insanely out of date.
The rest of your combo isn't cutting edge, but it's not horrible either.
Try finding a used AGP card... ATI 1950 Pro or GT, or maybe a Geforce 7900GS.

Then continue saving your $$$ for a total rig makeover. :laugh:

 

[bladder23]

Originally posted by: tracerit
I plan on playing games like Gears of War, UT3, Starcraft 2 (once it's released), Supreme Commander, Crysis (lol), Call of Duty 4, etc but my current system is not going to handle any of those games. This is what I have now:

Pentium D 930 3Ghz LGA775
Old ECS AGP mobo
OCZ DDR2 800 2 GB (2x1GB)
Radeon 9000 64MB AGP


I've done some reading, and it seems the nVidia 8800 GT is THE card to get. So aside from that, I'll need a new CPU and mobo. So my budget is around 200 for the vidcard, 100 for the mobo, and 100-250 for the CPU which comes out to around 400-550. I'm thinking about just using the Pentium D 930, but will that limit what the 8800 GT can do?

With Intel's next gen CPU Nelahem being released about a year from now, I dont' know if I should:

A. spend as little as I can now to play the games I want to and upgrade again
B. spend as much as I need on parts now that will still be ok 1-2 years from now.

I have the Radeon 9000 card too on a old rig.

Can barely play CS 1.6 @800x600