What should I upgrade first?

soulvengeance

soulvengeance

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Okay, so I'm thinking I'm going to update my computer here pretty soon. Here's my question, what should I upgrade first? My specs are as follows

3800+ amd athlon single core
1.5 gigs of ram
nvidia 6800 vanilla

The board I currently have supports am2 chips, so feel free to take that into account. I'm thinking I have roughly 200-300 dollars to spend, so I would like to allocate that to the maximum bang per buck as they say.
 
[quote name='docvinh']Okay, so I'm thinking I'm going to update my computer here pretty soon. Here's my question, what should I upgrade first? My specs are as follows

3800+ amd athlon single core
1.5 gigs of ram
nvidia 6800 vanilla

The board I currently have supports am2 chips, so feel free to take that into account. I'm thinking I have roughly 200-300 dollars to spend, so I would like to allocate that to the maximum bang per buck as they say.[/quote]

with that much money you can easily upgrade your chip and gpu.

newegg.com theres an am2 amd 3.2 ghz for 179.99, and you could probably go with the hd 3870 for 189.99.

a little over your price range, but a pretty hefty step up from what you got.
 
I think we can assume for the sake of the fact that this is cheapassGAMER that you use your PC and are upgrading for gaming purposes. In that case, I would say upgrade the video card first. Your CPU and 1.5GB of ram are pretty much fine for anything out there right now. For really new games like Crysis and Gears of War you definitely won't be able to run with max settings but they will still be playable at lower settings. I run a 3800+ X2 with 1GB of ram and a 7900GS and I can run any Source engine game or SoaSE at pretty much max settings with no issues.
 
[quote name='docvinh']Yeah, sorry I forgot to mention that, but I want to use it for gaming.[/quote]


Like other people said, you could just upgrade to an 8800GT, but your cpu will create a bottleneck.

but look around if you can, like I said, very easily for 300 bucks you could upgrade both and get substantial gains in visuals and performance.
 
Bah why choose just to upgrade one when you can upgrade them all :). Not knowing any of your mobo specs or PSU limitations I would recommend:
Video Card:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...tails.asp?EdpNo=3048552&body=MAIN#detailspecs

or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150258
(GDDR3 is much better performance wise than GDDR2)

Processor:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103771

Memory:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146565

All for around $240 after rebate, and should be able to handle almost anything you throw at it and leaves you a little room if you need to upgrade your PSU.

Edit:

And for the AGP users out there:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102718

And power supplies:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=719600&Sku=T13-2013
or if you are really thrifty....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817184007
 
Can your motherboard handle PCI Express video cards, or AGP video cards? I have a feeling you're stuck with AGP unless you upgrade the motherboard.
 
before recommending anything like an 8800GT or something, you need to make sure of two things: his power supply can handle it & his motherboard supports PCI-Express
 
If you want to play games, I'd strongly recommend upgrading the graphics card first and then the processor. But yeah, I'm wondering about your power supply. Your current system doesn't seem too demanding so I'm guessing you probably don't have a very powerful PS.

Also, the memory might be worth considering... maybe try to get at least 2GB. DDR2 memory is so cheap these days.
 
upgrade none ... save the cash for a new computer :D Can get a decent one for about 500 - 600 ... a power house for 900ish

I see no use to upgrading a computer with old parts like this in it ... more then likely you'll need to upgrade several things to support the one upgrade you really want :( Such is the life of a computer though
 
Yeah, I would need to upgrade the power supply, it's just a stock power supply. My board can support pci express, so that's not a problem. I would love to get something for 600, unfortunately, my budget is 300 for now, so that's what I have to work with. From the looks of it, I guess a gpu upgrade would be in order along with a power supply, and then the cpu.
 
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