9700 pro ATI upgrade

What does he want to play

Depending on what he wants to play a ATI 4670 would be a PERFECT! choice of card for his build as long as he is not exceeding 1280x1024 or 1440x900 it will run like a top

List your PSU specs such as watts/amps and make...albeit the 4670 can run on some pretty shitty power supplys so you should be covered

Give me your exact budget...who knows we may be able to give you a better motherboard and processor...if you can spare i believe around 200$ we can get him a bitching processor a motherboard and gfx card along with some ram...that should play anything but GTA well and stay under 200$

Let me know what you have to spend and we can start helping you out but if he wants to play any fps games or rts's etc or any game new that 3000 will SERIOUSLY be limiting you...so give me your MAX budget and we should be able to piece together a great pc for him

Of course you could tone it down abit but that 200$ should do just about 58$ for the cpu 50$ for the mobo and 60$ for the video card and any 30$ ram kit will work wonders as well..shipped will bring you right to 200$

Of course if you are on a budget we could lower the specs a bit...but going this route would give him a great system to play the latest titles atm with ease..COD 4/5 L4D TF2 Fallout 3 etc...

If it was my choice this is the route i would go...but your budget may not allow it :S

Well yeah the 4670 really is just a recommendation to add to the cpu+mobo upgrade

Really it wouldn't be a bad system to add on to considering all he would be re using is his case and psu etc..

And a smoking system at 200$ isn't that bad...but it really depends on what the kid wants to play as to if its worth it...the new system will play anything with great fps and performance

If i where him depending on the age of the kid you could always do the whole earn it thing and make him work off a 100$ on the thing.... just depends on what the guy wants to do

If it where me i wouldn't go with keeping the current mobo or going with the 3000 cpu and the agp as it wouldn't have a bit of performance in current games...pretty limited

An X1650 Pro ($50 at NewEgg for the better one) would be an upgrade over the 9700 Pro. An HD 2600XT ($45 after rebates) would be even better still ... and probably the best deal. I wouldn't spend more than $50 upgrading that machine.

Here is the aforementioned HD 2600XT: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814131136

Great!!! All I had from you was really good advise and after a good look I'd say that I made up my mind. I'll let you know the result