Current system:

Athlon XP 2800+ {2.08ghz}
XFX 5900XT
512mb Corsair Twin XMS PC3200
Asus A7N8X

Been thinking of upgrading to an AMD 64 3700, 7600GT and upping the RAM to 1gb. Total spend c£450.

However, what leaving my system as it is and getting the AGP 7800GS at c£200

I'm guessing my CPU would not rise to the challenge!

Your CPU was certainly be the bottleneck there and AGP is dead tech.

Hehe , Funny ... But I Don`t Think So , The Athlon XP 2800+ Is Not A Bottleneck , & It Can OverClock To 3200+ Speed ... & Discord You WILL See A Huge Different If You Change Your Video Card To A 7800GS Or X850XT ...

Check my specs in sig, I upgraded from a 6800 and made a HUGE difference, from a 5900xt? An insane boost.

Sorry for double post... However, upgrading to a new platform would be huge, new mobo + 7600gt + 3700 + 1gb of some crucial value DDR is cheap and would last alot longer in terms of upgrade then a single videocard upgrade, if you buy the videocard you'll need to upgrade in 3-6months if you wana be able to play all games anyway... infact my 7800gs strugles with Oblivion as it is. (high quality, 0aa, 0af, no HDR, 1024x768 is usually ~25fps outdoors with draw distance far, however a 7600gt probably wont do much better, however, when DX10 comes out then it would be a good time spend a small fortune on a videocard)

DX10 isn't coming out for ages so don't bother waiting with an outdated system for months and months.

Just go to eBuyer and spend your £450 on CPU, graphics, mobo and RAM. You should be able to get CPU, RAM and Mobo for around £250, and that leaves £200 for a graphics card.

lol read my entire post before you respond dude. I said that If he bought a new motherboard, cpu, ram, and videocard that he should get a 7600gt, or something equal, and spend a little more on the videocard when DX10 cards become available, considering DX10 is gunna be out Q4 this year with Vista (Hopefully), thats not a terribly long time... 5-6months? Thats not that long and a 7600gt could pull you through that time. And I realise my grammer sucks, just lazy I guess .

That sounds like a reccommendation to me, but whatever.

Vista isn't coming out this year - Q1 2007. That's not 5-6 months that's more like 9 months away, that's the best part of a year - and I don't think I need to tell you what a year is in technology terms.

I think so and it is a relatively cheap investment to boost performance

PNY 6800gs $183 shipped @ monarch

Then you can "wait for conroe" as they say and at that time get a dual-core opty or X2 with the venerable ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 Socket 939 ULi M1695 so you can use the 6800 until DX10 cards are fully deployed.

in that case, if i were you i'd upgrade the entire system.
if you spend 200 on an agp card will make you spend more money in the future when you upgrade to a new platform.
a 7800 on your system seems dumb... maybe a midrange card like a 6800 or x8x0 would fit better

I agree with doolittle that the 6800GS is a good upgrade choice. I went from a 6600GT to a 6800GS as my final AGP upgrade before I build a completely new system sometime after Vista comes out. So far I'm very happy with my BFG card (and as a side note, I would avoid PNY and get some other brand of 6800GS because of their poor customer service).
I also think that you should get another 512MB of RAM if you can. Moving from a 5900XT to a 6800GS and doubling your RAM will be like night and day in comparison.

really depends on the game played, if you want to play Oblivion, FEAR or BF2 it will be extremely painful on the FX5900XT.

For $200, you get a 3x boost in GPU performance and would be at least to play it 800x600 crippled. A boost in memory would be equally beneficial and relatively inexpensive, and reuseable in a s939 upgrade - and with the ASrock dual mobo nothing goes to waste in a piecemeal upgrade.

Although a $800 complete upgrade is not a bad idea by all means, just not as easy on the wallet.

yeah, but considering $200 is about half a total upgrade, including a card that will kick 5900's ass, i guess it's not worth... even worse because he would have to buy a new card in a future upgrade

yeah, considering that way is a good choice

edit:
oh, you were saying about 6800? if so, i agree with you... like i said it would fit better than the 7800, although a 7800 and a future asrock dual looks cool too.
but in my opinion, between a 200$ 7800 agp and a 450$ total upgrade i would go for the upgrade

You should be able to find a X800GTO, possibly a X800XL, or a 6800GS AND add another 512 MB to your existing system for around the price of that 7800GS. It will hold you over until this whole AM2/Conroe/Vista/DX10 debacle gets settled. Then blow your wad on a new system.

Depending on your cooling setup, overclocking that 2800+ might be a good idea as well.

If you want a new machine, then what you spec'd looks reasonable.

I think he is in UK pounds so it is around double for USD so ~$400 for the best AGP and ~$900 for a whole re-gut.

sorry, by $ i mean "currency", as i dont have the pound character on my keyboard...

7800GS = £190

CPU, Mobo, RAM, Graphics = £500

It's almost certainly cheaper to order from the USA with the pound so strong at the moment - if only Newegg delivered internationally.

I currently run an Athlon XP 2800+ and have just upgraded from a Radeon 9600XT to a Radeon X850. The card cost me about $200 US on eBay and my framerate as a result, has at the very least doubled in games that demand performance, such as Doom3, Farcry, FEAR etc. Do I think it was worth it? Yes, I do. If you can overclock your CPU (I can to well over a 3200+ but feel no need to do so right now) then that's a relatively inexpensive upgrade as well. An upgrade to 1GB of RAM is definitely worth it in any case and highly recommended.

Hope that helped!

BFG 6800GS £164.38 Inc VAT

If you need 1 512 Mb DDR £41.65 Inc VAT

If you need 2 512 Mb for 1 GB DDR £72.67 Inc VAT

£206.03 using the 1 512 method
£237.05 using the 1 512 method

1gb DDR DIMMS start at £46

I think both are good choice... a new system is obviosly the better one, but a new agp card for your current system is not a bad one either... and certainly cheaper! even if you get more ram (which i also reccomend like the others above) w/ that 7800 you will be cheaper than a whole new platform.

The athlon xp is not dead yet, and agp is still viable as even my 1900 would probably not saturate the bandwidth on agp 8x... but that 7800gs is certainly no gtx, and some of the above points about $ spent on legacy tech vs parts that have a longer lifetime. While your comp is not dead, it soon will be.

If i were you I would listen strongly to f1nalOmen as his system is about what yours is... if what he says seems to be what you want for performance (for a while anyway) then go for it... if not then get the new mobo, cpu etc...