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Question about what to upgrade
Just a simple question of what I should upgrade to get better graphics and performance.
I have a Pentium 4 CPU 3.00 GHz
2.99 GHz, 2.00 GB of RAM
My video card is Radeon x600 256mb Hypermemory
I'm not very good with computers so keep that in mind, but what should I start with?
"God, please help us sinful children of Ivalice.."
Comments
Your choices are limited, however if you get the ATI 3850AGP or the 4650AGP then that is about as much as the AGP bus can hold
2 gigs of extra ram wont hurt either even if you have a 32bit os
that should extend the live of your computer for about another year at min-med game settings for most games
It greatly depends what your budget is.
While your CPU isn't bad (per say), it's a little outdated.
Your video card is definitely your weakest link, but as said above... AGP slots can only progress so much, and that limit was reached a few years ago. Newer cards almost exclusively come in PCI-E format, which would require you to drop money for a new motherboard.
If you put the money towards a new Motherboard, there might be a chance that it would come with a different supported CPU chipset, making you buy a new CPU anyways.
You'd also have to get new RAM, as I'm guessing you're on DDRAM, and not DDR2 or DDR3, the latter of which is becoming the new standard, but DDR2 is the cheapest and most widely supported.
So, in the end... If you're looking to upgrade, I'd hold onto the cash until you have about $600-$1200 and just invest in a new machine, as upgrading one part of what you have might necessitate upgrading the whole shebang anyways.
A good Mid-range machine with plenty of power will run you about $1000 if you start from scratch and build it yourself. If you're not tech savvy, look into some of the gaming computers Dell and others put out. They'll cost you a bit more for the same hardware, but they'll assemble it and test it.
Yes, I am an English Major.