£200 to spend??

[markwombat]

Hey Guys, I was this afternoon about to buy a new AGP graphics card for a friend running the following spec:

Athlon XP2800+
1Gb Crucial RAM
Geforce FX5200 256Mb AGP

He wanted me to look for a new Graphics card for his computer upto £200.exc. VAT. Having looked around and read some posts and threads regarding spending this amount of cash on AGP graphics cards I decided maybe not. How does the spec below sound?


Athlon 64 3200+ 939 retail pack
ECS Motherboard N-Force 4, PCI-E, SATA, etc....
Geforce 7600GT 256mb DDR3 PCI-E

All this adds upto just short of £200 exc VAT so is still in his price range. Would he notice a bigger difference upgrading his CPU and switching to PCI-E and spend £120~ on a graphics card than staying with his old rig and spending £200~ on an AGP card??

Thanks in advance..

 

[trojan698]

I'd go for the second option and flog the old kit perhaps allowing a larger budget to accomodate a 7900GT. You might want to consider an alternative to the ECS motherboard also, perhaps the Abit KN8 Ultra?

 

[UKTopGun]

He wouldnt really be able to spend £200 on a graphics card on his rig because I think his graphics card might be limited by his processor.


I'd take the second option.

 

[trojan698]

Overclocking the venice would remove the bottleneck though

edit - oh i see what you mean now, bottlenecked if he went for option 1?