Extending the life of my system

[mx597turbo]

I want to extend the life of my system. I'm mainly looking for an increase in game performance. Here is my current stsyem:
AthlonXP 2200
Geforce Ti 4400
512MB ram
120GB hd

Would i get a bigger increase in game performance from a agp 6600gt or an athlon 3000

I want to do a complete upgrade at the end of the year to an sli mb, 2 vid cards, and a faster cpu. But right now I don't want to change more than one component and the mb I have is agp and the cpu will have to be athlonXP

 

[mpasternak]

Hey,

I recommend doing nothing if you're going to do that at the end of the year. your proposed changes at the end of the year would require a new Motherboard / CPU with all new architecture.

you'd basically be throwing out any purchase you make right now since you're probably on AGP now. to do SLI you'll need to go PCI-E which means any AGP board you buy right now will be useless after the upgrade.

and as for the CPU. wait. the difference in CPU probably wont make a huge difference. it's your video card itself being the real tight wad here

 

[lonelypauly]

Prices for PCI-E VGA's are as cheap, if not cheaper than some AGP cards. A good 64bit board with PCI-E shouldn't cost you more than a $160.

<b><font color=blue>Athlon64 3200+ Winchester/MSI Neo4 Platinum SLI/MSI 6800 Ultra/1 GB Kingston HyperX (Dual Channel)/74GB WD Raptor/600Watt Enermax Noisetaker/ Dual Mitsubishi 21 Inch Monitors</b></font color=blue>

 

[Oracle]

Upgrading your video card now to 6600GT AGP and then your whole platform at the end of this year would be a total waste of money. Save the money for your end of year upgrade.
IMHO, SLI is overrated and too expensive. Just get an excellent card like R500 or G70 (which will be available by then) or even X850 or 6800Ultra. You'll save money and still end up with the hell of a gaming machine.

-----
<font color=blue>Why am I under the impression that I am not under any?</font color=blue>

 

[cleeve]

Your system is on the virge of being disposable...

Having said that, you should beel at ease pushing the components at this point. Your 2200+ should yield 2600+ speeds at the very least with some minor overclocking, that's a good stopgap CPU solution.

As far as a videocard, sell your 4400 on ebay and use the spoils to buy a cheap 9800 PRO, also on ebay...

Do that, buy an extra 512 megs of ram, and your system will play games for a year and a bit yet...

________________
<b>Geforce <font color=red>6800 Ultra</b></font color=red>
<b>AthlonXP <font color=red>~3300+</b></font color=red> <i>(Barton 2500+ o/c 412 FSB @ 2266 Mhz)</i>
<b>3dMark05: <font color=red>5,275</b>

 

[pauldh]

Ah, I'm loving the advice. I don't even have anything to add Cleeve, it's basically exacly as I was thinking when I read his post.


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