what to Upgrade? CPU or Video Card?

[MalaKatonChe]

I have a question...Im thinking of upgrading my machine...

I have a 900MHZ AMD with 312 RAm and a Geforce2 GTS. My motherboard is an IWILL KK266Plus

Thing is I only have 200 bucks so what do I do?

1)Upgrade my Grafic Card to a G4Ti200 or radeon 9500 Pro?
2)Upgrade my CPU to 1.5 MHZ?

I intent to spend $250 US dollars more in about 4 months but in the meanwhile I want to make me a present to be able to play Rainbow Six ,Splinter Cell and C&C Generals at decent framerates.....

So I want to buy what improves most my FPS first and gives me teh best visual quality 🙂

 

[Ilmater]

The GF4 Ti4200 is the better upgrade.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Go to newegg.com and get a retail Athlon XP 1800+ for 78 dollars (or a 1700+ for only 65 dollars).

That alone will give you a nice boost, and a GF2GTS is still above the requirements for most games; programmers still write on the assumption that most of their buyers will have a GF-256 or higher. That could hold you for several more months, allowing you to save that money till everything is even cheaper, and when you'll have that additional 250 bucks, you could pretty much build an entirely new system. (250 plus 100 dollars leftover from this minimum, is enough to get a good new motherboard, a video card at least a Ti4200, and probably even a faster processor; an nForce2 with dual 266MHz memory would be perfect since you could keep your memory modules).

If you REALLY want to, a Ti4200 is 120 to 150 dollars, easy to do along with the processor upgrade, but if you can hold off, they'll get even cheaper over the next few months, and when GeforceFX comes out, they'll drop.

 

[HGC]

I would go to www.multiwave.com and get the Radeon 8500LE 128 MB OEM $98.00, and the Athlon XP 2000+ retail with fan and warranty $90.00. Shipping was $11.00 to my zip code, that gives you a total of $199.00 delivered for one awesome upgrade. I picked Multiwave over Newegg because Newegg is out of the Radeon 8500s, which I think are a great value now as the newer cards have caused the price to drop.

 

[Lord Evermore]

The 8500LE/XP2000+ would be a good combo too. I just grabbed the first easy combo I could think of on Newegg, since they're usually cheaper than mwave (and faster shipping), although the XP2000+ isn't. Plus I still am not clear on whether the 8500LE is all nice and functional now. I have no qualms about the 9500/9700 line as far as drivers, but haven't bothered to look at anything lower than that since the 8500 line wasn't perfect when it came out.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: HGC
I would go to www.multiwave.com and get the Radeon 8500LE 128 MB OEM $98.00, and the Athlon XP 2000+ retail with fan and warranty $90.00. Shipping was $11.00 to my zip code, that gives you a total of $199.00 delivered for one awesome upgrade. I picked Multiwave over Newegg because Newegg is out of the Radeon 8500s, which I think are a great value now as the newer cards have caused the price to drop.

sorry, but wouldnt getting the XP processor also require a mobo upgrade? i dont think any motherboard made for a athlon 900mhz can take an xp processor....or am i terribly wrong? wasnt amd using a slot a or somethin for those athlons? i know my athlon 750 was a slot processor....

if it DOES require a mobo (and im almost certain of it....) then the hot deals forum had a link to a XP2000+/mobo combo for like 100 bucks or so, i think it was an ecs which can usually use DDR or SDRAM (check it out tho, as you didnt give all your system specs)

then get a radeon 8500le, my bro has one, great card, as low as 70 bucks at some places, newegg prolly has one for 80

but i could be wrong....

 

[HGC]

I think xSauronx nailed it, that is just what i would do with $200.

 

[Lord Evermore]

I think the highest speed SlotA Athlon was 800 or 850. Past that was the Thunderbird SocketA. Regardless of that of course, one can just look up the KK266Plus specs and see that it's SocketA.

The BIOS MAY not support an XP processor properly, if IWill never released an update for it. In that case, a motherboard/CPU combo with a board such as the ECS K7S5A would be a good deal, though getting that plus an 8500LE would go above 200 dollars. If your board can't support an XP processor, then you're probably best off getting just the better video card such as the 9500 and waiting till you can get a new board and CPU later. Although the 9500 won't be working at its best with a 900MHz Athlon, it's better to go ahead and get the video card that you plan on settling on eventually, rather than getting a middle-performance video card and then getting a much faster mobo and processor and having the video card become a bottleneck.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
I think the highest speed SlotA Athlon was 800 or 850. Past that was the Thunderbird SocketA. Regardless of that of course, one can just look up the KK266Plus specs and see that it's SocketA.

The BIOS MAY not support an XP processor properly, if IWill never released an update for it. In that case, a motherboard/CPU combo with a board such as the ECS K7S5A would be a good deal, though getting that plus an 8500LE would go above 200 dollars. If your board can't support an XP processor, then you're probably best off getting just the better video card such as the 9500 and waiting till you can get a new board and CPU later. Although the 9500 won't be working at its best with a 900MHz Athlon, it's better to go ahead and get the video card that you plan on settling on eventually, rather than getting a middle-performance video card and then getting a much faster mobo and processor and having the video card become a bottleneck.

i believe the slot a went to 950, and the tbird started at 900 and wend up (may be wrong on the tbird)

trust me, i very much wanted to upgrade my 750, but it wasnt worth the money for 200 mhz , and oc'ing with a GFD was iffy and cost 40 bucks to get the damn thing anyway, so not worth the trouble
hmmm.....tho, with a new cpu/mobo/video, you may need a psu too (if yours is under say...300watts, that sound about right guys?)

ohhh, pricewatch, a biostar mobo with a xp1800+ for 102 bucks
radeon 8500le 64mb for 66 bucks
256 mb pc2100 - 45 bucks

all shipped, 213 or so

thats just a quick glance, likely beatable if some other guys look around, but i gotta go, so....yeah 🙂

 

[filmore crashcart]

The kk266 plus supports the early 200 fsb T-birds - socket. In which case, there isn't too much latitude for a cpu upgrade, except the 1.5 you mentioned. If you don't plan to go to ddr memory and need to retain your sdram, then the ecs k7s5a would be good since you could change over your sdram memory with a more updated cpu. BUT...... getting into more powerful cpu's and especially with the ecs motherboard, you better be sure of your power supply. 300w does sound about right if it is a good qualtiy p.s. Your looking at doing some reasearch. Whatever is handling your 900 mhz processor now might not hack it with that motherboard and then your in for headaches and more money than you wanted to spend. Check your power supply. Even stepping up to a 1.5 tbird might require more punch than you have. Maybe for now, get a decent video card and then save for a change out of board, processor, memory, and power supply. Hope this helps.