Most beneficial upgrade, cpu/mobo, or vid card?

[Milo Malhame]

Current system is athlon Barton 2800+ not overclocked on MSI nforce 2 ultra
mobo at 167 fsb (default settings) with an ati 9800 pro 128 meg at stock
speed.
Ram is 2x 256 megs OCZ pc 3200 with copper heat spreaders in dual channel,
all on win xp pro sp 2.
Question is for $350.00 cad I can upgrade the vid card (on sale at FS
Canada) to an ATI x800 xl 256 meg agp card or I can upgrade processor and
mobo to an athlon 64 3000 "Venice" s939 ($183.00) and asus a8n-e atx nforce
4 mobo ($141.00). I know that I should probably upgrade both, but I can't
cough up over $700.00 right now.
Only games we play are NFS Underground and MS flight Sim 9.
Which upgrade do you feel is most worthy?
This system needs to last about 2 more years and then a total upgrade would
be in order.
Cheers
Milo

 

[Carl]

if i were you i would get more memory

 

[Killa]

I would buy the unlocked Barton XP-Mobile for $100, run the fsb at 200+,
clock the processor to at least 2200-2500mhz.

 

[Wookie]

Get up to a gig of memory .. the PC3200 corsair value RAM is decent for 80$
(US).

 

[Milo Malhame]

So what you are saying is neither choice is a worthy upgrade and just up the
ram to one Gig? What does that accomplish and what do I do with the 512 megs
that I currently have? They are 2 sticks of 256 in dual channel. I would
have to toss or sell them to upgrade to 2x512 sticks. I can't believe that
is a better alternative to a new vid card or cpu/mobo combo.
thanks anyways.
Milo

 

[Wookie]

I f you insist on a new video card then it should be a PCI-E for upgrades to
the future (within a year or so) ... but your current MB now can't handle
PCI-E video card.

Getting a new MB you should get an NF4 board (or Via yech!!!!) and an NF4
borad uses PCI-E video cards .. you could get a new CPU .. like a 939 chip
CPU and then you could keep your 9800 PRO but you'd need to get an NF3 board
as NF4 boards use PCI-E.

I do think that your Flight simulator and NFS would work much better with 1
gig of RAM and would be a noticeable difference. If your current MB can
handle 4 sticks of RAM then get 2 more of the 'same' RAM sticks. 2x512 is a
better solution though as the NF boards are slower usually with 4 sticks of
RAM than just 2 sticks... some limitaitons on the memory controller. Your
OCZ PC3200 is probably good RAM

The only reason I suggested RAM is because it allows you to upgrade the
other components when you have some more cash, getting a MB or new CPU means
that you need to upgrade everything if you go with an NF4 board ... you
could go with a VIA (KT800) or NF3 (250)chipset and get a 939 CPU and keep
your 9800 PRO ..... and keep your 512 memory .. I do recommend 1 gig of
memory though at some time. Going with the VIA/NF3 board and a AMD 64
3000/3200 would keep you in your budget. If you want to get an X800XL, they
do have some AGP versions .. they are very nice cards but would shoot your
budget and would not be upgradeable to future MB's. I have a PCI X800XL PCI
card .. up from a 9800 Pro and it is very nice.

 

[Doug]

Funny. You can actually get dual-channel if you were to buy one 512MB stick
of RAM. You could run the two 256MB DIMM's in one channel and the one 512MB
stick in the other channel. You would have 1GB all in dual-channel. This
would be the cheapest upgrade you could get.

The biggest bang-for-the-buck upgrade would be the X800XL. The problem with
that upgrade is that your CPU is kinda slow. If you overclocked your CPU and
bought the X800XL that would be the upgrade I'd recommend. Since the games
you mentioned are not limited by your CPU.

 

[farmuse]

yes the X800XL and then a ram upgrade next month, sell the old
stuff to your buddy or maybe a forum such as hardocp. That CPU is by no
means slow. No it is not an A 64, but it is still plenty fast enough.