What to upgrade?

[joyrider3]

Hi everyone. I've been noticing that games (like GTA3 and MOAA) are getting chopping and was just wondering what I should upgrade? My budget is kinda low, under $200 for sure. I'm basically debating between CPU, motherboard and ram, and a new video card? Here are my specs:

Intel P3-700E
Asus CUSL2
384 MB PC133
Radeon 64 VIVO
Sounblaster Live!

Thanks.

 

[ChampionAtTufshop]

for under 200 budget i would wait until you saved up a bit more
then upgrade cpu/mobo/ram all in one shot

or if you want now you could look into the ECS boards with ddr and sdram capabilites
then you could upgrade cpu and mobo now, and later when you have enough money again upgrade ram and videocard because a good videocard will be held back by cpu/ram right now

 

[KGB1]

Welcome to Anandtech Forums man.

That 700 P3 is pretty okay for gaming.

Option 1: I'd get a ATI Radeon 9500 Pro for it.
Then save up and get better hardware. You can still go either way Intel or AMD on that one.

Option 2: Buy a Powerleap Socket 370 adapter, slap a Celeron 1.4 (256k cache, fsb 100. Same as P3)
And buy a video card later and you dont have to upgrade RAM, Motherboard etc...

 

[bgeh]

i agree with ChampionAtTufshop and KGB.
besides, hammer, r350,800mhz fsb p4 chips will be launched in 3-6 months time

 

[optimistic]

I hope you have a Fry's near you

AMD Athlon XP 2100+ Processor with Soyo Motherboard $129 (After $10 MIR) Link
- AMD Athlon XP 2100+ Bare CPU with QuantiSpeed Architecture
- Soyo KT-KT333 Dragon Lite motherboard with
- Via KT333 Chipset with Socket A Interface
- 4 Channel Hardware Sound

PNY 256MB PC2700 @ 333MHz $49 (After $20 MIR)]
Kingmax, Samsung, Nanya 256MB PC2100 @ 266MHz $39 (NO REBATE)

Your video card should still be okay.

 

[joyrider3]

Thanks for your help. Unfortunately I live in Nevada so there aren't any fry's by me I was looking on newegg.com though and I saw some boards that looked good. Any insights on these boards?

ECS K7S5A
AOPEN AK75
Biostar Motherboard M7VIP
Biostar Motherboard for AMD Athlon/Athlon XP/Duron Processors, VIA KT400 Model# M7VIT

And for processors:
AMD Athlon 1600+/266 FSB XP Processor CPU OEM for $55.99
AMD Athlon XP 1700+ Thoroughbred /266 FSB Processor CPU 1700+/ 1.47GHz -OEM $57

And i figure if i need some DDR ram i could find 256MB for $70.
What do you think?

 

[numark]

The ECS K7S5A is a really nice board, but it can take some time to get it to work. It's mostly system dependent, I had one system that absolutely refused to boot using the K7S5A, and others that worked fine. It allows you to use your SDRAM until you can get DDR, if you choose to wait on the RAM until later. And for the extra buck, go for the 1700+. No use in saving a dollar for ~500Mhz difference.