Where's my bottleneck? Is an upgrade worth it?

erasure

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Jan 27, 2002
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I'm looking to upgrade my graphics card to get better game performance. My question is, is it worth it on my system? With my system, will the latest GeForce, or any of the newest cards give me great performance, or will the rest of my system hold it back? My current system configuration is:

AMD Thunderbird 1200 MHz CPU
Asus A7V-133 mobo
512 MB PC133 RAM
Radeon 32 MB DDR video card

So...Will I be able to push 60 fps in DOOM ]|[ on this system with a new graphics card, or should I get a budget card to tide me over until I upgrade everything? What's the biggest bottleneck on this system, CPU speed or RAM speed? Thanks in advance for any replies.
 

chuck232

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Mar 25, 2002
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I don't think that any system other than a P4 2.4 w/ a Ti4600 would get you 60fps in Doom]|[. I'd say get yourself a Radeon8500 or something to tide yourself over til Hammer/Prescott. Then do the whole thing and build yourself a new comp. Right now the bottleneck is the video card, then the RAM, then the CPU. A R8500 OEM I think at newegg.com seems to be very good. They seem to have 3.3ns RAM and they;re only $98.

:smile: Falling down stairs saves time :smile: