Upgrading? Yes - but to what...?

[Tiny Clanger]

First of all - apologies for what will be a rambling upgrade post and thanks for anyone who can struggle through it and offer advice

At the moment I have the following setup...
AMD Athlon XP2400
ASUS A7V333
Radeon 9700 non-pro
512Mb RAM

...which has performed very well over the past couple of years and still runs games like HL2, WoW and Rome Total War at acceptable detail/framerates. However, I suspect that recent releases such as Oblivion will be beyond its' capabilities - so maybe it's time to invest in an upgrade.

Mind you, technology has moved on a pace since my last upgrade - then, the only choices were 9700 or 9800 for graphics and how fast you wanted your Athlon XP to be (...in a minute I'll say "Aye, and I remember when this were all fields tha knows"!) Hence the request for advice.

So - question one - is there any real point in just buying a faster AGP graphics card? Will there be a significant increase in performance that will allow any semblance of playability for Oblivion etc..?

If not - then question two is how should I spend my money (ideally £400-£500) on some new gizmos to drag me kicking and screaming into, if not 2006, then at least 2005.

As ever - all help, suggestions and opinions are gratefully received...

Cheers

TC

 

[LoopyLee]

Go for AMD again and if you not doing much different on new rig then you were on old just got for a top end 64bit, more memory and a upgraded G/Card (some good ones on special).

Will see a big improvment in speed and will handle newer games a lot better.

Also cheap to upgrade to.

 

[Joe42]

I think if i were you i'd drop a 6800gs or something in it and make do for another year or so.
Several reasons:
-£500 is probably sempron teritory, which isn't a great upgrade if your building a new system
-Loads of new tech about to emerge, and we may see some significant performance leaps
-You don't seem to have a problem playing the games you want to play and a graphics upgrade might be enough to keep it playing what you want for a time.

Could also do with a small ram upgrade.

 

[Tiny Clanger]

Thanks for your input guys - greatly appreciated

Seems like it could be the 6800GS upgrade ***! Is there any difference worth mentioning between the XFX and OcUK cards (apart from a fiver in the price that is?)

Thanks again

TC

 

[rubberduck]

I would advise

Abit KN8 motherboard (Socket 939) (£70)
1GB Memory (£64)
Athlon 3500 (£100)
Nvidia 7800 GT (£194)

That will give you good upgrade paths for the future.

Sell your old parts for auction and maybe you can up the above specs if you wanted.

 

[jmhduck]

Hiya the xfx gfx may be clocked/ have higher frequencies, check the speed ratings on ocuk.