upgrade my video card or no?

athlon xp 3200+
1gig ocz 400mhz fsb
9700 pro

i'm not happy with performance anymore. would it even be worth it to upgrade
my video card on this system? would i see a noticable improvement with any
video card, considering my cpu? if so, please suggest a SM3.0 card to
replace my aging but loveable 9700 pro.

> athlon xp 3200+
> 1gig ocz 400mhz fsb
> 9700 pro
>
> i'm not happy with performance anymore. would it even be worth it to
> upgrade my video card on this system? would i see a noticable improvement
> with any video card, considering my cpu? if so, please suggest a SM3.0
> card to replace my aging but loveable 9700 pro.
The dilemma is AGP or PCIe. Spending a lot of money on an AGP video card if
you really have to have SM3.0
http://www.pricewatch.com/video_cards/973133-1.htm
is not a good idea since AGP is going away. I am in the same boat with a
X800 Pro and 3.0 GHz P4. I noticed an improvment upgrading to X800 Pro from
9700. It was enough to go up one or two resolutions in detail at same FPS.
Your CPU is still good for games. It may be best to hold on to the setup you
have untill you have the $600 to $750 needed to do a proper PCIe upgrade. In
a year, you will get a lot more bang for your buck.

-Kent

"spaceman" <sonofzeus26@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:u%1Xf.61858$Jd.31769@newssvr25.news.prodigy.net...
> athlon xp 3200+
> 1gig ocz 400mhz fsb
> 9700 pro
>
> i'm not happy with performance anymore. would it even be worth it to
> upgrade my video card on this system? would i see a noticable improvement
> with any video card, considering my cpu? if so, please suggest a SM3.0
> card to replace my aging but loveable 9700 pro.
>

If SM3.0 is your main criteria, in addition to higher performance, then the
NVIDIA 7800 GS is your only choice. ATI has the X1600 in AGP format with
SM3.0 support, but the performance isn't there. Another high performance
AGP card (no SM3.0 support) is the ATI X850XT PE.

Every game out there now runs fine without a SM3.0 card, so maybe you
shouldn't worry about that aspect until you upgrade to a PCI-E system.
Google any of these cards and you should be able to find some
reviews/benchmarks to compare them.

I went from a 9700 Pro (which I was very happy with since it came out, but
it gave up the ghost) to a X850XT PE and am very happy with the performance
boost. This is on a nForce2 board with 2GB RAM running a Athlon XP 2700+.
I've played BF2, Doom3, Quake4, F.E.A.R., HL2 on it and just finished COD2
for the 2nd time (awesome game). HTH