Upgrading my mum's old system

[simonnance]

mums got an old XP 2800+ setup, 521MB ram, but a puny 9200 card. She's looking at doing a lot more graphical stuff than she currently does.....

So what's the best "bang for buck" card that wont be stupidly bottlenecked (anyone says i should put a X1950Pro in there should be shot). Prob try and grab a deal on MM, 9800 or X800 sound about right?

Not much more upgradeable there, could double the ram..... but 512MB for what she does isnt that bad, and the 2800+ is a good chip for the motherboard.

 

[celliott]

What sort of graphical work?

Something like an ATI X800 or nvidia 6800 would be ideal.

 

[Schnippzle]

Think Iv got an X800Pro lying around somewhere with an Arctic heatsink on it if that would be interesting enough?

 

[Sniper123]

mums got an old XP 2800+ setup, 521MB ram, but a puny 9200 card. She's looking at doing a lot more graphical stuff than she currently does.....

So what's the best "bang for buck" card that wont be stupidly bottlenecked (anyone says i should put a X1950Pro in there should be shot). Prob try and grab a deal on MM, 9800 or X800 sound about right?

Not much more upgradeable there, could double the ram..... but 512MB for what she does isnt that bad, and the 2800+ is a good chip for the motherboard.

AGP or PCIE?

 

[dunker]

i've got an xp2800 + 1950pro agp card in another pc, runs everything lovely at 1024x768 with heaps of AS and AA go ahead shoot me but i say get the fastest card you can, better to have the card outperforming the cpu than the other way round i reckon.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

7600gs is nice and cheap.

 

[Amnesia]

6800gt would probably be good match for the cpu....havent a clue what they cost though

 

[Cyber-Mav]

whats the exact use of the pc gonna be and what do you mean by your mum wanting to do more graphical work? the 9200 is good enough to do anything really other than gaming. i rekon its the cpu or ram which is slowing down and not the gfx card.
9200 can do vista aero fine so hmmm?

 

[simonnance]

OK, she does a lot of conferences online, and is looking at interactive grapical stuff like Second Life, ect ect. IMO the 9200 is a real limiting factor, as the CPU is pretty decent , better than my old one i used to game on (X2, Rome Total War, ect ect) and the ram is average.

And its AGP of course, im not sure they even DID PCI-E on socket A, or the 9200 for that matter.

Looks like an X800 or 6800 is a good bet, i'll have to keep an eye open. This is more a "need to do sometime" than a "need to do NOW", so i can keep tabs on what is around, and try and snag a good deal.

Many thanks all!