computer upgrade?

Question

i need to upgrade my computer...i want to play games like doom 3 and unreal tournament 2004...
my system specs are...
1.7ghz Celeron Processor
256mb of RAM
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700LE

i cant upgrade all at once...

I can upgrade to...

2.4ghz Pentium 4 processor
1GB RAM
im not sure what video card...any suggestions

what should i get first.

i have a Dell Dimension 2350 and in about a year im going to get a new computer....i just cant stand the low speed of my comp

Answer 1

I'd advise for you to re-build (I assume you have 400MHz FSB, 423-pin processor slot and rambus memory?). Most of that technology isn't worth the money to upgrade. Processor is just as slow and the memory is expensive. If you take your time, you can get a good up-to-date PC for less than $500 in parts.
Okay, if you're buying a new processor, you might as well go to hyper-threading or dual core, similar prices unless you're going top-of-the-end. (most newer processors can add up to 5-10GHz if their cores are utilized properly - you can't really add them, but logically it adds up).
Memory, If you're buying 1GB of older memory, you can get 2GB of newer DDR2 for the same price... (Keep in mind that a lot of those 400FSB motherboards don't support more than 386 or 512MB of RAM, so you might be wasting your money).
Graphics, 7600GT runs for about $50-$100 if you look around, getting up to PCI-E opens a lot of new options since the newer value cars give you more bang than the old performance cards.
If you upgrade your Old PC, you'll likely need a new power supply, so you might as well spend the extra $100 for a motherboard and not worry about limitations.
Your hard-drive will work, upgrading is always an option IF you need it.

When I started re-building, I started adding parts to the side, even if they were'nt compatible with my current hardware. After two months I had everything and I'm glad I did that over upgrading. One thing I can promise you, is you'll be sorry if you get that 2.4 P4 (I was), it's not a big jump over the one you have now.

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Edit:
I saw your model addition. Good news is that that PC doesn't use Rambus like I thought, it uses 266MHz DDR (Which is like 1/4 of the price), but it has limitations. No more than 1BG total and no more than 512MB Per slot of memory, you can look around for a 512MB you can add to make it easier on you while you rebuild (since you can find them really cheap), but that's about it. Nothing else is worth changing. It doesn't even have an AGP slot, so you can't have anything close to performance video and the power supply is only 200 Watts which means you'll have to replace it if you add anything to the PC. Plus, you don't really want to barely meet the "Minimum requirements", that means you'll have to play @ 800x600 on low detail on everything... Which makes you wonder' why bother play games like those when you can't enjoy it like the designers intended it to.

Answer 2

The easiest and cheapest of the upgrades is the RAM, but you're going to have to do all three to have a machine that's decent for gaming.

If your funds are limited at this time, I'd do the RAM first and save up for the other upgrades later. The RAM will help with plenty of stuff other than games, and in general get your machine to run better. Good luck!

Answer 3

You already meet the requirements for Unreal Tournament 2004. Double your ram and you will have the minimum requirements for Doom3. I would suggest to ge 1GB of ram that should fix most of your gaming problems. Then upgrade your CPU.
Here are the Doom3 requirements
Minimum:
P4 1.5Ghz CPU (or equivalent).
384MB of RAM.
64MB graphics card (see below for chip details).
2GB of free hard drive space.

Lowest supported GPU is a Geforce 4 MX (worse than Geforce 3).
Supported cards:
GF 4 MX.
GF 3.
GF 4.
GF FX (and higher).
Radeon 8500s, 9000s and higher.

Answer 4

Get the RAM first. Your system is choking on 256 right now. 1gb will let it run free! And, this may actually provide a better increase than the processor upgrade would.

Answer 5

definitely get the ram first.