Which is better for gaming?

[CyberData4]

Ok, forgive me if this question isnt exactly about a video card. But i figured that since I'm doing this to try to get better gaming quality on my pc and most people that frequent this board know all bout gaming rigs....I'd give it a shot.

I currently have a 4200+ installed on my cpu. my current specs to the best of my limited knowledge are:
Athlon XP 2400+ (266mhz fsb)
1024mb ddr pc2100
Asus a7n8x deluxe motherboard
Ati Radeon 9800pro (128mb)
80gb hd

I play alot of pc games and I was looking to upgrade my chip. Would it be worth it as far as performance increase (not price) to upgrade to an athlon 3200+ from my current 2400+? I'm thinking if I get a better cpu I can also upgrade my ram since 2100 is the fastest speed my ram will run.

Fnally if I do get a 3200, what is the appropriate ram speed for it? Thank you in advance if anyone can help

 

[ufo_warviper]

Not right now, the 3200+ costs an arm & a leg the last time I checked. Also, games should play fine with high quality with your rig the way it is now. Faster RAM would probably be the best bet. You got a whole lot of RAM, but its only PC2100 (DDR266) Try finding some DDR400. You might actually fare better on 512MB DDR400 than 1024MB DDR266

My OS features preemptive multitasking, a fully interactive command line, & support for 640K of RAM!

 

[Spitfire_x86]

If you're going to buy Athlon64 3200+, then you should see significant increase in gaming performance. But you have to buy a new mobo for using A64 3200+

If you want to buy Athlon XP 3200+, then I would say buy better ram (PC3200/PC3500 CL2.0) and overclock the current CPU instead of buying a new one. The RAM will be usable with your next CPU and you can get equal or better than AXP 3200+ performance without spending extra money for CPU

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[CyberData4]

It was my understanding that I couldn't use any ram higher than pc2100 (266mhz fsb) because my cpu's fsb is only 266mhz. And if I did my ram would simply "underclock" to be in sync with the max fsb speed of my cpu? Is this true? Can I buy pc 2700 or even 3200 and run it at THAT speed (without overclocking) with a athlon 2400+xp?

 

[ufo_warviper]

Your 2400+ Thoroughbred should be compatible with at least DDR 333 RAM.

My OS features preemptive multitasking, a fully interactive command line, & support for 640K of RAM!

 

[Spitfire_x86]

There's no physical difference between PC2100/PC2700/PC3200 RAM. You should have no problem running PC3200 underclocked at PC2100. I myself running PC2700 underclocked at PC1840.

You can use PC2700/PC3200 at PC2700/PC3200 speed with 266 MHz FSB CPU, but it will hurt performance. nForce2 mobos perform best when they run memory sync. with FSB.

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<b><A HREF="http://geocities.com/spitfire_x86/myrig.html" target="_new">My Rig & 3DMark score</A></b>