Upgrade Options?

[Devilman]

Hey all.

Currently got the following rig and am getting somewhat limited by my gfx card in games now, need a bit of advice on upgrade options.

Currently running:
AMD S754 3200+ Clawhammer
1gb (2x512mb) Geil DDR400
Asus K8V-Deluxe mobo
ATI 9800Pro@XT speeds.

I dont have a huge budget to play with and I feel that my cpu still has plenty of power in it to run what I play (mainly World of Warcraft and the odd Half-Life mod), im just limited by the gfx... I maybe have a maximum of around £200 to spend.

Is it worth seeking out one of the AGP solutions that are available, or would I see better performance opting for an S754 PCI-E mobo (any recommendations for good ones?) and gfx card to suit.

Lastly, I noticed with my mobo that if I populate all ram slots (3 of em) it limits itself to DDR200 speeds , is this still the case with the pci-e boards aswell, or would I be able to put an additional 1x1GB stick in a 3rd slot and still maintain DDR400 speeds? (as Im pretty sure that lack of ram is some of my performance issues, but since I cannot populate the 3rd slot on my board without limiting transfer rates to DDR200, I havent done so)


Cheers all...

Any specific board / card recommendations are welcome, as Ive been a bit "out of the loop" in terms of PC hardware for the last year or so, and have no idea what gives the best performance for my budget. (to give you an idea, I know that a 6800Ultra spanks my 9800Pro, but I dunno how these new cards perform compared to said 6800Ultra).

 

[Deleted User 234324]

Dont think you will find many s754 motherboards around at all now, let alone ones with pci-express.

Better off getting a newer 939 cpu and maybe the asrock 939 mobo that supports agp and pci-express now, then later on going for a pci-express gfx card when you can afford it.

Or as most people here will suggest save up some more money and go for a conroe system instead but that will set you back around 500 quid or so. 8800's completely annihilate the 6800's and in most cases the 7800-7900's as well.

 

[Devilman]

There are a few good S754 PCI-E mobos around at the moment, I did a bit of checking, but without hearing from ppl who have used / owned boards like them, its hard to tell whats good from whats not.

I simply cannot stretch to a full upgrade at the moment, not to mention that I still feel my CPU has more than enough potential to run the games im asking it to, my performance bottlenecks seem to be mainly the gfx card (and perhaps a bit of ram problems)