Will this upgrade help GTA IV?

Hi. I want to get GTA IV but I'm worried my specs can't handle it:

Athlon 64 X2 @ 2.5GHz
2GB DDR2-800
X1950 Pro 256MB

I can get a used 8800GT 256MB cheap (£60)- I'm pretty sure this is worth the upgrade in general, but will it help GTA IV? Is the 256MB version of the 8800 GT a worthy card? I can't get the 512MB version for anything like as cheap.

Thanks a lot for any help.

Thanks. Haven't been able to find any comparative benchmarks for GTA IV but I doubt the improvement will be as big in that as it will be in other games. Do you know of any?

Pretty sure I'll see the difference in the other games I'm playing at the moment- Left 4 Dead and Race Driver: GRID.

GTA 4 responds best to CPU not GPU.

With your Athlon X2 you could put a GTX280 in there and still not have playable frame rates.

Thanks for all your advice guys. Unfortunately the auction ended before I could get a lot of it, but I doubt I could have resisted anyway- managed to get the 8800 GT for £45 (plus p&p). After I've sold my X1950 Pro the upgrade will have cost me very little. I don't expect much improvement in GTA, but my current card was struggling with GRID so it should help that.

I was planning to buy a 4850, but since its price has been so stable (and has in fact increased marginally) in the last few months over here in the UK, I decided just to make a cheap step up for the time being, since money is tight.

I suppose the next step is to think about overclocking my cpu, since my current one is virgin. Not sure what I can expect out of an X2 4800+ on good air cooling- if anyone has any experience of this cpu I'd be glad to know.

Thanks again.

Well if you get a better video card you're going to need to turn down some of the more CPU intensive options to get a benefit. I don't know what those options are since I don't plan on getting it myself. As for Grid a better video card would help. It ran fine on my computer when my Athlon 5000 was at it's 2.6GHz stock speed, but of course overclocking my system allows me to raise the detail up a little . GRID doesn't like my logitec game pad too much though so I had to borrow one from a friend . Anyway if you can overclock your CPU it would help some . since you have it at 2.5GHz I'm assuming it's a Brisbane core, since Windsor cores suffer a performance hit with uneven multipliers. If you have the G2 stepping you should be able to hit 3.0GHz. I'm still using the stock cooling on mine.

GTA4 is cpu bound so a gpu upgrade wont help much a faster cpu will. I would get a card with 512mb, 256mb isnt cutting it anymore.