What's the best upgrade for gaming?

[AChilds]

Obviously its the graphics card... but what is more important: Ram bandwidth
or CPU power?

I want to upgrade my machine...

I have:
G4 MX440
Athlon 1.4GHz
256 DDR 266
Gigabyte GA-7VAX

I rates i get more ram, but should I get DDR 333 or 400, I've seen in benchmarking that 333 is on par, and in some instances quicker than 400, by considerable amounts...

Thanks

 

[SickBeast]

Unless you can run on the 166 fsb, then faster ram is pointless. In your situation you would be served well by a videocard upgrade, and while you're at it you might as well add another 256mb of pc266 while you're at it (it's cheap these days). I would reccomend the Radeon 9500 pro, or if you're willing ot wait a bit, check out the 9600 pro and the fx5600 pro.

Your cpu should be fine for now, it's running at nearly the same frequency as an athlon xp1700+. That said, however, the 2100+ chips are cheap these days if your motherboard can take it.

 

[AtomicDude512]

If you are a crazy gamer then your whole system needs a rehaul. If you are a moderate gamer just buy a Radeon 9500 from NewEgg and an additional 256MB of RAM, then you're set! \

BTW, Most everybody likes 512MB because it makes everything run faster, it helps in Windows XP too.

 

[AChilds]

The GA-7VAX is a new board so it can support Agp 8x, 333fsb CPUS, XP 3000+ and above...

Im strapped for cash...

I live in South Africa nd buy directly from an importer. I have about 1200 Rand, which equates to around 150 US Dollars...

DDR 333 is pretty cheap in rands here, R 665 for 512mb, about $ 80-90...

To give you an idea of CPU prices...

XP 2700+ R 2700, $ 340
XP 3000+ R 6000, $ 750...

Hmmm...

 

[billyjak]

I would get a graphics card first, some games don't chew up all the ram.

 

[AChilds]

K, but when i play C&C Generals for a while I get Virtual memory messages... 256 isn't that much anymore...

 

[Bojangles139]

the most bam for your buck will be new vid card. i would recommend getting more ram now since it is so cheap. if can spend some now and more later, get the ram now, then vid card next. again, ram is very cheap right now, who knows if it will stay that way. but if you set amount, get the vid card, you can easily stay with 256meg of ram.

brandon

 

[DOOPYLOOPY]

yah the easiest thing to say to upgrade to bring that system into ummm line with itself is definitely the graphics card with a much better graphics card that system would sing.

What would give u the biggest improvement would be CPU power I'd say but if you only have $120 usd then you might only have enough for RAM. Perhaps save up some more and get a better graphics card.