Processor or vid card?

[Guest]

Looking for upgrade advice. I have a Dell PIII 733 with a Geforce 256 and 384 meg RDRAM. I want to upgrade the video card, but have been told I need a better processor to push a GeForce3 or the upcoming GeForce4. I can boost the processor to a PIII 1 gh on my current board. Should I do the processor first? If so, then what card? The GeForce4 Ti 4200 looks impressive at $200 when it comes out, but will a 1gh processor be enough?

"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition."

 

[williamc]

p3 with rdram?

i'd advise sticking with what you have until your ready to go the whole 1.9 yards and buy a new machine entirely. You have a great card for that machine right now. Save up and buy a brand new athlon or pentium machine 6 months or a year from now and get the uber Nvidia card at that time.

 

[bront]

My guess is that the Radeon 8500 will outpace an Nvidia TI4200 for a lesser price, and seems to be less sensitive to your CPU speeds.

I wouldn't bother upgrading your PIII. If you have RDRAM already, moving to a Northwood P4 won't cost you too much, simply a new motherboard and CPU, and posibly a case (Some Dells can accept any MB, some can't). The Video card will help you out a lot for now, and will get a plesant improvement when you upgrade the rest of your system later.

I do not like it Tom you see,
I do not like green PCB.

 

[Crashman]

YOu could upgrade to 1GHz and get a fairly good improvement, but a new video card would give you a lot more, the Radeon 8500 Retail goes for around $150 and is probably about the same speed as the Ti4200.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?