What should I upgrade?

[Lmao]

I currently have an Athlon XP 2000+ with a gig of PC2100 DDR ram and a GeForce 4 Ti-4600. I'm thinking about getting the ATI Radeon 9800XT to increase my performance in games, but I'm afraid my processor will bottleneck the video card maybe? Should I upgrade my processor/ram/mobo first then? Help!

 

[d33pblue]

You have enough juice left in your processor to push a more powerful video card. However, I wouldnt recommend a 9800XT just on the basis of price. A 9700 Pro or 9800 Pro would be a FAR better buy for someone in your position and provide you with a substantial increase in power over your current card.

 

[Regs]

I would save up a grand for the next 6 months, and get a monster of a machine then.

What is your current motherboard?

 

[McArra]

Buy a 9700Pro/9800pro and a new CPU/MB/Ram for the price of the 9800XT

 

[sugarkang]

Buy a 9700Pro/9800pro and a new CPU/MB/Ram for the price of the 9800XT

there was a benchmark test somewhere that showed the difference between old cpus vs new cpus and using old video cards vs. new video cards.

that test convinced me to upgrade my athlon 1700 to a 2500 OCed to 3200.
i'd suggest the same for you. or get one of those slz63 chips if you wanna go intel.

wait on the video card. if you must have one now, i'd say go for the nv 5900 for <200 bucks and OC it.

you'd get all that for the price of the XT, and far better overall performance.

 

[Lmao]

I have an EpoX 8KHA+ mobo at the moment. I'm tempted to buy an Athlon 64 processor as well....but I only have a budget of $620... :frown:

 

[TheAudit]

I'd probably upgrade the CPU first and then the video card.

 

[sugarkang]

I'm tempted to buy an Athlon 64 processor as well....but I only have a budget of $620...

right now is the absolute worst time to buy any kind of hardware.
well i guess serial ata drives are okay, but even then the sata300s are coming soon.

as far as athlon 64, you DEFINITELY want to wait for socket 939. the current sockets will only be supported to the end of this year. where's the upgrade path then?

if i were you, i'd get one of the older boards for really cheap. that crazy intel sl6z3 chip or a barton 2500. either will OC like mad.

the reason you want to wait for socket 939 is because it's unclear which chipset will work the best. for instance, the nforce2 vs. VIA. i don't know anyone that likes the VIA over nforce2, except for that one crazy poster who probably got banned. socket 939 is due out in march or so, but i'm going to wait until the dust settles.

i see that you've got an athlon 2000 and ti4600. that should be a decent performer in most situations.
i don't think you're absolutely intent on burning your money, so try to hold out for just a couple of months.

 

[modedepe]

IMO getting a 9800xt would be a bad move. First, its price to performance ratio isn't very good. And second, your cpu will bottleneck it somewhat. What games are you currently playing though? Maybe they're mostly video card bound.