Upgrade Graphics Card or whole system?

[Captain_not_Captain]

As things were tight at Christmas time I ended up building my 7 year old a PC from components I had squirrel'd away over the years (i'm a horder )

The main spec's were, if I remember correctly:
AMD A64 3700 San Diego
an SLi capable Foxconn 939 motherboard
a reasonable 500w Modular PSU
and an old Radeon 800GTO graphics card.

Its playing all his basic games like all the LEGO series and stuff like that but he's getting more into his gaming so I got him Batman AA. Unfortunately it comes up saying the CPU isn't fast enough and the graphics card doesn't support the right shader model. My fault for not checking!!

Question is, if I OC the CPU up a bit closer to the 3ghz it says it needs (I know it won't reach that though) and say, bought an ATi 5770, does anybody reckon this would run some of these newer games or am I looking at upgrading the lot.

 

[Captain_not_Captain]

The 5770 will be massively bottlenecked by the CPU.

It would be cheaper to get a XFX4850 £80, but even that will be held back by your CPU.

That CPU is a single core isn't it? How much ram?

Realistically, I don't think it will play batman in its current form, needs either a major overhaul, or more realistic games it can cope with.

Yep, its just a single core with 2gb RAM.
I was hoping that I'd get away with just upgrading the GPU but realistically thought it would need a major upgrade. Was just looking for other opinions, so cheers for the reply.

 

[Captain_not_Captain]

Unfortunately the motherboard is an old socket 939 so no luck there.

Would need to be a motherboard, cpu, ram and gpu. But cheers though.

 

[Captain_not_Captain]

Can you seriously get anything for this old stuff?

I reckon I will have to look at some of the AMD set ups. All things considered, they seem to be fairly well priced for what you get.

 

[Captain_not_Captain]

Thanks for all the replies folks.

I know what you mean about the Batman game. It kind of creeps me out too.

However, what I didn't know until recently, is that my young brother in law, who still stays with the in-laws (AKA Granny & Grandad) has been letting him play Batman, Left for Dead and Left for Dead 2 when he has been over visiting. Wasn't happy when I heard but he's already well hardened to these games.

As for the console suggestions, thanks again. He already has a Wii and Ds Lite. And I've got a PSP, 360 & PS3, from back in the days when I had a better money flow situation. So he has plenty of choice but always seems to go back to playing on the PC. And yes, he is spoilt rotten. (well partly, as I use him as an excuse to get new games and stuff for myself....I just say its for him and the wife tends to cave in a lot more than if I said it was for me )

Guess I'll just need to start saving for a new set up.