changing cpu... but what to?

[phill21]

i need some help guys and gals (if there are many out there..)
i have a duron 650 @ 866mhz on a ABIT KG7 mobo with 256 of P2100 memory (cas 2.5 if that makes any difference) with a geforce 2 ultra for a graphics card and a 20gig seagate ata100 5400 rpm hard drive...
its a good reliable setup, but with the DDR board, i was hoping for more of a performance increase with it, but i havent really gotten that with the duron..
i used to have a tbird @ 1.33ghz with the ultra and was hitting over 10000 3dmarks in the 2000 version and about 4000 - 4500 (i cant remember which but it was around that much i think !!) in 2001, but with the duron, im not close to 7000 in 2000 but near 4000 in 2001.
can anyone recommend me a cpu thats faster, that doesnt cost the earth and oh, thats AMD... want to step up in the world and make use of my hardware that i have...
plus, i want a change of graphics card as well, (although not at the same time tho.. too expensive !!) but im quite taken by the new nvidia cards, geforce 4 ti 4600 (who wouldnt be!!) but was wondering what ATI have up their seilves...
if anyone can recommend something thats going to be a decent upgrade for me and that i will notice a lot of a difference in benchmarks and more importantly game playing, then please can they give me a list of what to get !!
im egerly awaiting some replies, and thanks for the help !!

 

[AMD_Man]

I recommend you wait a while to upgrade the graphics card, but you can get an Athlon XP 1700+ for around $130USD, I believe. That will significantly improve your system performance.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor

 

[phill21]

what would this do for benchmarks etc?
i tried my tbird cpu in there and its slightly sped things up, but not to anything like i was hoping... i got a result in 3dmark 2000 of 9300 i think, with the card overclocked !! was hoping for at least 10000 as the older result was with PC133 memory on a KT7A...
is it worth going for a faster cpu than the 1700 xp or would that be the best price to performance one ? want to make a good desision on what to buy... money not to much of a problem but dont want to go ott...
was thinking that waiting for the graphics card would be the best idea... any ideas on what ATI are releasing???? thanks for the help mate !

 

[AMD_Man]

Yeah, the Athlon XP 1700+ is a good deal faster than the Athlon 1.4GHz. The Athlon XP 1700+ currently provides the best bang for the buck, but the Athlon XP 1800+ and 1900+ are also reasonably priced for their performance. Stay away from the Athlon XP 2000+ right now if you want to save money because it's priced at a premium for the minimal performance improvement it provides.

ATI will be releasing the 128MB Radeon 8500 in a week or two but I don't know if it will be significantly faster or not yet.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor

 

[bront]

Holding off on all purchases for a few weeks might be a good idea, with the impending release of the T-bread as well as the new Nvidia and ATI cards.

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