Upgrade Question: Video card or CPU?

Right now, my system setup is as follows:
Athalon 900
GeForce2 MX (not 200 or 400, just MX)
256mb PC2700 DDR
a 60 gig HD
a 13 gig HD
all on a Gigabyte GA-7VRXP

Seeing as I don't have much in the way of money, would it make sense to first upgrade my CPU to an AthalonXP 2000+ or would it make more sense to get a GeForce4 Ti4200?

I'm gonna be upgrading both eventually, but I'm really not sure which should go first.

Thanks.
Soundmage

I do mostly gaming. some audio editing, some graphics editing. Mostly Quake3, UT, UT2003 when it comes out, DooM3 when it comes out...

If you really need to save, you can go a bit more frugal, and get a Radeon 8500LE at very, very low prices now (like only $110 US).

If you are willing to overclock, the 1800s are at a rock bottom price, and they oc well with good performance. *shrugs* Frankly, I myself would save a good $300-400 and just upgrade both at the same time.

"When there's a will, there's a way."

*grins*

Hey, what can I say, I like Ati, and I like Nvidia

The Catalyst drivers just look and sound cool, while Nvidia has some nice cards, but questionable driver releases. Where in the world can you get a Gf4 ti4200 for 130??? I thought the lowest price decent card was the R8500...I could be wrong...

"When there's a will, there's a way."

I would seriously consider getting the 128Mb version, it will last longer, and overclocks to 4400 levels on par, and sometimes to around 4600 levels (higher core, lower mem). If you are going to upgrade the CPU later, you may want to consider an 1800+ T-bred when they arrive, and oc it, or a Barton Athlon when that arrives. If you get a new CPU now, I can see the possibility of a 2000+, they are low enough in pricing to be worth buying, plus, they overclock relatively well when unlocked.

"When there's a will, there's a way."

I have seen some odd changes in performance since the advent of the 23.11 drivers, but I know Nvidia is usually rock solid with stability, it's just the peformance I think they could tweak. Ati finally seems to be catching up in driver support, although I could be wrong.

"When there's a will, there's a way."

I think we may all be used to the 5-10% increase in speed for the ATi cards so that a minimal or non-existant increase for nVidia cards is letting us down. But remember this, ATi came out with a crap set of drivers for the release of R8500/R7500/R7200/R7000. If they did not improve performance through thier drivers, I don't think many people would buy their cards. nVidia on the other hand already had very good drivers and it may be harder for them to squeeze out any more performance. So you shouldn't just companies by how much their drivers help in performance, cause I'm sure a lot of nVidia card owners were laughing at ATi when they released their new products along with drivers that didn't work.

Falling down stairs saves time

Anyone heard anything about P10? Whatever happened to that one? It kinda sounded promising....

Falling down stairs saves time

so here's what I'm thinking of doing.
get a GF4 Ti4200 now, put on ramsinks, overclock as far as I can go.

overclock the CPU to 1ghz or higher. wait for the AthalonXP 2000+ prices to fall through the floor, which shouldn't be long...I wanna see $129 or less from newegg or accubyte before I buy. I'm cheap, I know.

Just a little slower is the 1900+ for $117 US at Newegg.com (OEM) Runs at 1.6Ghz, and is very fast, good for overclocking too.

"When there's a will, there's a way."

Yeah, but that's OEM and he'd have to get a separate HSF too. Probably around $10-15USD. Yup, the 2000+ may take a while to reach $129. The 1900+ is probably a max of 5% slower and right now it's quite a bit cheaper.

Falling down stairs saves time

Ok yup, sounds good. Now unless you need a dual monitor display, I think the Gainward GF4 PowerPack! Ultra/650TV Golden Sample is a good choice. It has 128MB and you can run it in the "enhanced performance" mode where it automatically overclocks for you. On newegg.com, you can get one for $173. Pretty good deal.

Falling down stairs saves time