pentium 4 upgrade advice

hhhhbk · 26 Oct 2006 at 00:20

My neighbour has asked me to look in to upgrading his pc so that his son can play current games on it

currently
p4 2.4GHz
512mb ram
ati 9250

would an upgrade of the gfx card allow it to play current games on low settings?

or would other upgrades be needed too???

i remember ati 9800s being raved about back when people were building around this spec and athlon xps
they can be had for sub £40 secondhand these days
can they handle current games on low settings
"age of empires 3" was mentioned by the son

i dont play games myself so am asking for suggestions for a decent AGP gfx card to stick in it (probably secondhand) sub £50 would be nice if possible
but can probably get him to pay more

also contemplating getting a gig of geil value to replace the ram shame ram prices have rocketed...

TIA

Rroff · 26 Oct 2006 at 00:50

I'd look around for a 6800 class GPU, a gig of RAM and if possible one of the 3gig P4 Northwood C - D1 stepping as they are much better than the prescott.

Should run even the latest games in high quality with playable but not the greatest framerates, or medium quality with decent framerates.

sneakyd · 26 Oct 2006 at 11:16

Depending on the motherboard you may be able to set the cpu to 3ghz.
My P4 2.4c northwood runs at 3ghz no problems with no temp changes.

6800le and unlock the pipes if it's agp is the cheapest graphics upgrade I think.

1gb of ram should also help.

sja360 · 26 Oct 2006 at 13:03

whats the upgrade budget that your neighbour has in mind?

Rroff · 26 Oct 2006 at 16:54

sneakyd said:
Depending on the motherboard you may be able to set the cpu to 3ghz.
My P4 2.4c northwood runs at 3ghz no problems with no temp changes.

6800le and unlock the pipes if it's agp is the cheapest graphics upgrade I think.

1gb of ram should also help.

Thats true I should have thought of that - my Media PC is an old 2.4gig P4 OCed to 3.0gig and it handles it no hassle.

The 6800LE is v. hard to get hold of, but a nice speed boost if you can get one with unlockable pipes.

hhhhbk · 26 Oct 2006 at 17:46

many thanks for the replies

odds are hell buy a new pc sometime next year
just wants a cheap stopgap solution

iv had a look at some secondhand agp cards

6600s can be had for £30 which seems a decent price
im going to go and try and find some comparisons at THG of cards run at stock now