Should I upgrade my motherboard/cpu/memory combo?

Question

I have a decent computer, and I want to know weather I should buy a new video card and memory for the existing mother board, or should I get a new motherboard along with a cpu, memory and gaphics card. Here is my rig.

Asus motherboard with a p4 3.0 cpu 800mhz fsb
radeon 9600xt agp graphics card
512mb of ddr 3200 ram

So, should I get a better agp graphics card, and 2 gigs of ram, or would it be better to upgrade to the newer processors, ram and pci-e with a new mobo?

Also, any suggestions on a list of parts?
I play games like far cry, halo, hl2, cod 2

Answer 1

Upgrading the cpu/mobo/ram is pretty much the brains of the pc, hence it is a new pc.

That is what I did , and paid 600$ for : cpu+mobo+ram,

I got the Q6600, so if you get a dual core you can save money.

I suggest you get new :cpu/mobo/ram

Answer 2

Well, it definitely depends on what you're willing to spend. But if you - or somebody you know - can put all the PC parts together at home, you can save a bundle.

If you were to upgrade everything - motherboard, CPU, video card, RAM memory, you might not spend as much as you think it would be. If you check out a website like http://www.newegg.com, their prices can't be beat on any of the parts.

To be honest, if I had that rig, I would upgrade everything instead of getting a better video card. (You will be much happier with a PCI-Express card with at least a Gig of RAM).

As far as recommendation for parts:

I would stick with an Asus motherboard. There are many good ones. Just look for maximum RAM of at least 4 gigs, at least 2 regular PCI slots, and more than one IDE slot (unless your hard drive(s) or DVD drive(s) are SATA, and not IDE).

If you do get a graphics card, I would suggest eVGA with an nvidia chipset. I have a eVGA 7600 PCI-E card. It's getting on the old side, but I'm still running Half-Life 2, F.E.A.R, and games like that on full textures without a hitch. I would suggest getting a card with 512 mb on-board too.

As far as a CPU, I am and always will be a die hard fan of AMD Processors. I've never bought intel, and I don't think I ever will. I bought a dual-core AMD 6000+ (it runs at 3.0 ghz stock speed, and I can overlock with my Asus board) for only $160. And an intel 3.0 ghz is about the same as an AMD 2.3 ghz. That's preference though. You could buy an ASUS board with intel support if you wanted. You will probably be paying more for the CPU, though.

Check out newegg.com for these parts and you'll be surprised on the prices, trust me.

Answer 3

Yep time to upgrade... if you're getting into really new games.

Here's a good site to research Graphics cards and MoBo's

Go with a PCI-e setup .... AGP is really old school now.

Also, if you're going to be a "gamer" buy at least 2G RAM, more if you can afford it. RAM is cheap right now.

http://www.tomshardware.com/

Hope this helps.