£215 to spend...

[vince07]

Hi, i'm new to OC forums but i have an important question !

I have an absoloute maximum of about £215 (including VAT and delivery) to spend upgrading my system, primarily for gaming.

Could anyone advise me on which components would give me the most 'bang for buck'. Also, would this upgrade enable me to play current games e.g. the new C&C / BF2142 and upcoming games like Quake wars and the infamous 'Crysis'.


Here are my current specs:


Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
OS Service Pack Service Pack 2
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)


Motherboard
CPU Type AMD Athlon 64, 2000 MHz (10 x 200) 3200+
Motherboard Name ASRock 939S56-M (2 PCI, 1 PCI-E x1, 1 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR DIMM, Audio, LAN)
Motherboard Chipset SiS 756, AMD Hammer
System Memory 512 MB (DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type AMI

Display
Video Adapter GeForce 6500 (256 MB)
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce 6500 (256 MB)
3D Accelerator nVIDIA NV44
Monitor NEC FC700 [17" CRT] (310078923034)

Multimedia
Audio Adapter SiS 7012 Audio Device

Storage
IDE Controller SiS 5513 IDE UDMA Controller
SCSI/RAID Controller SiS 182 RAID Controller
Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive
Disk Drive HDS728080PLAT20 (80 GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/133)
Optical Drive SONY CD-RW CRX320EE (DVD:16x, CD:52x/32x/52x DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
SMART Hard Disks Status OK

Partitions
C: (NTFS) 78520 MB (34771 MB free)

Input
Keyboard Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse HID-compliant mouse

PSU - 450w (came standard with X-fire case)


Any advice much appreciated

 

[Zefan]

I'd try to find 2GB of cheap secondhand DDR3200 and a 7600GT AGP, that's about the most you'll get for that money.

That'll be beatiful for any Doom 3/Quake4/BF2 etc, but Crysis will cry.

 

[Jaffa_Cake]

I'd try to find 2GB of cheap secondhand DDR3200 and a 7600GT AGP, that's about the most you'll get for that money.

That'll be beatiful for any Doom 3/Quake4/BF2 etc, but Crysis will cry.

Welcome to the forums vince.

I would agree with Zefan here, thats not much you can do on that budget. 7600GT is a good card

 

[truebluecfc]

First off, welcome to the forums.

You dont have an amazing budget for a really good upgrade, but i would try to get some cheap 2GB of RAM and a graphics card such as a 7600GT. Tell us how you get on.

 

[Zefan]

Cerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrlaimed!

 

[vince07]

I'd try to find 2GB of cheap secondhand DDR3200 and a 7600GT AGP, that's about the most you'll get for that money.

That'll be beatiful for any Doom 3/Quake4/BF2 etc, but Crysis will cry.

Thank's for the quick reply, you mention an AGP card in your post, im pretty sure my motherboard only has a PCI-E slot and the usual PCI slots.