I am currently on the verge of building a new pc, but just ran into a brick wall.

My current system:

Athlon XP 2600+ Barton
1GB PC3200 Kingston CAS3
All in wonder 9800 pro 128mb
Gigabyte GA-7vt600 -P -L

Going to upgrade to:

Athlon 64 X2 3800+
2GB Dual Channel Mushkin XP4000 Black Series
eVGA 7800gt CO
DFI Lanparty NF4 UT Ultra-D


The build is going to cost me about $2000, I could afford it over the next few months, but I am trying to spend less, so I'll have more money for other things. I came across the eVGA 7800GS CO Superclock and according to the specs, it looks like a really good card that could last for the next 2 years in my current system. This upgrade will cost me a quarter of the build price, so I'm seriously considering it. The problem is I can't find any comparisons between the eVGA 7800gt CO and the GS. I know this is comparing apples to oranges, but gaming performance wise, how do they compare?

eVGA 7800GS CO Superclock - 460mHz/1350mHz, 16 pixel shaders, 43.2BG/sec memory bandwidth
eVGA 7800GT CO - 470mHz/1100mHz, 20 pixel shaders, 32GB/sec memory bandwidth

Spec comparison at:
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/evga_e-geforce_7800_gs_co_superclock_review/page2.asp

Since my next planned upgrade in two years time will be the big one, where I will be willing to spend a fortune on all the latest hardware, would spending the $2000 on the build increase gaming performance substantially compared to $450 to simply upgrade my video card? Please help me out with this. Thanks.

you could do what im doing waiting for socket m2 it comes out soon i have socket a like so best advice wait for m2 then decide cause getting it now would be a waste. if you wanna save money buy some ddr2 ram now for cheap before the price goes up here some choices.

ocz ddr2 533 2x512 mb
crucial ddr2 667 2x512mb
patriot ddr2 800 2x512mb
these are the cheapest 2x512 mb kits i could find for each speed.(i like the ddr2 533 kit the best it's the cheapest)

I would choose another card, like a 7800GX or the X1900XT or X1800XT something that has 512MB on the card. I have the X1900XT. Socket M2 will not be available until 2007 so for right now you have socket 939.

Actually my mobo is AGP, and there aren't any socket A pcie boards I know of. I want to get the 7800GS, more specifically, the eVGA 7800GS CO Superclock because it is pretty powerful, enabling me to play games with high detail on my current system, and save money for an m2 rig and either a 7900gtx or x1900xtx.

Option 1: If I overhaul now, next time I upgrade would be in two years, but I'm going to get the best of the best.

Option 2: If I just upgrade just GPU, then I could overhaul in a few months with m2 system with really good GPU, but I am going to overhaul again in two years time to get the best of the best.

So what you guys think?