Need Vid Card Replacement

Have a 4 yr old 9800 A-I-W 128mb card that's going bad on me and am looking to replace it along with getting a new system sometime. I am looking to match or hopefully improve upon the old card for around $100. Don't play to much in newer games except I'm looking to play ArmA: Armed Assualt which has specifications

Minimum specifications

* 2 GHz or better Intel or AMD processor, or equivalent of.
* 512 MB of memory.
* nVidia Geforce FX with 128 MB RAM & Pixel Shader 2.0 or better
* ATI Radeon 9500 with 128 MB of RAM & Pixel Shader 2.0 or better
* 5 GB of Disk space (or more as needed for downloadable add-ons)
* Windows 2000 or Windows XP.
* DirectX 9.0c


Recommended specifications

* 3 GHz or better Intel or AMD processor, or equivalent of.
* 1 GB memory
* nVidia 6800 or better, with at least 256 MB of onboard RAM.
* ATI X800 or better with at least 256 MB of onboard RAM
* 5 GB of Disk space(or more as needed for downloadable add-ons)
* Windows XP.
* DirectX 9.0c



The system

Gigabyte GA-7N400PRO2 NVIDIA n
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Product [...] uctID=1678
AMD 2500+ (not overclocked)

1GB Kingston KVR333X64C25

lc-b400atx 380W power supply

Is my old cpu going to be a choking point to play the above game or any of the available vid cards?

Thanks for your time
Bob

8800GT 256 $200

or 3850 is $170

Will my 380W PS limit those AGP cards? As far as upgrading I'll buy a new system first before I trust my fingers and patience with a full blown mobo upgrade, LOL. Thanks for the replies.

Are the drivers better now for the 2600 series AGP?
I thought there were issues and the omega drivers were the best option, otherwise I would have recommended the 2600XT, especially for the price:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102711

"In this first article, we're going to start by benchmarking all the newest, most powerful AGP cards on an Athlon XP 2500+"

Looks like a fine example for "do a search before posting a question" advice, LOL

My memory

2x KINGSTON kvr333x64c25/512 512mb pc2700 333mhz cl2.5 ddr dimm

would 2GB($160) of match pair hyper x pc3200 400mhz w/heat spreader be much of a gain over 2GB($115)of plain old pc3200 400mhz?

Heck I picked up 4 gigs of DDR2 for less than 80 bucks a couple weeks ago. The differences in memory prices is just crazy.

If you are just doing light gaming and you want to keep you computer a while longer just upgrading the video card would probably be the way to go. Keeping your 2500+ at stock should be fine. Remember if you get faster memory it will not always guarantee a good over clock, it depends on the cpu. Like I said my 2500+ was a champ. If you get memory just get plain old budget DDR 400, I would not get anything fancy for such an old system.

If you could over clock the 2500+ to a 3200+ yes you would see a nice improvement. But yes you would need the DDR 400 because I doubt your current memory would over clock that high, but you could try it.

Here is an old 2004 CPU chart. On the list you can compare the 3200+ Barton to the 2500+ Barton and you will see that the 3200+ does quite a bit better than the 2500+.


http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_ [...] 5&chart=25