Upgrade RAM or CPU/MOBO? XP>>64

[Ace No-Money]

I just recieved this radeon 9800 pro and awesome ABIT mobo with hopes to be able to play high end games like HL2 with awesome peformance!
I clocked my Athlon XP barton 2500+ up to 2.35GHz and Half-Life 2 "Hiccups' Constantly, and you know how annoying choppy screens are?! I decided this can't be because of my Video card but either lack of memory or Construction of CPU. I closed out all my programs in the background and still get hiccups @ 800x600 and no aa/af!
I need to fix this and am trying to make a decision.

Sell:
2x256mb (Dual Channel) mushkin lvl 2 pc3200 w/2-2-2-5
and will do 240 (DDR480) with 3.2v @ 2-2-2! BH-5 Winbond

Buy:
2x512mb (Dual Channel) Corsair Value pc3200 CL2.5

- this means I will have plenty of memory but cant overclock the FSB at all! I like this option though because it is something that I can afford and not have to save for! Can Athlon Xp's really use 1GB?? I will probably get a mobile and overclock the multiplier then.

Or I can


Sell: Athlon XP 2500+/Tt silentboost/ABIT NF7-S v2.0


Buy: 939 Mobo(ASUS/ABIT/GIGABYTE/CHAINTECH)
and Athlon 64 3000+

will ths help me that much with games?? i will have to save a long time to upgrade the cpu and mobo, remember I am Ace No-Money

I guess I could do both but I hate to give up all my athlon XP overclocking dreams and that Sweet *** memory

Give some words of Wisedom or your own tips. Any Athlon Xp users notice a big difference when going from 512mb to 1GB? I feel like 1gb is too much for athlon xp! Any alternatives???

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

Your hiccups are not caused by your hardware, because you should be able to play half life very well.

 

[grego]

If you haven't already, make sure you run Ad-Aware (and/or some other GOOD spyware prog), defrag, and scandisk before you make any investments you don't need to (considering, after all, you are Ace No-Money). That stuff, especially spyware, can really screw you performance if you let it get out of hand.

 

[EdoKoi]

I just recieved this radeon 9800 pro and awesome abit mobo

Give some words of Wisedom or your own tips. Any Athlon Xp users notice a big difference when going from 512mb to 1GB? I feel like 1gb is too much for athlon xp! Any alternatives???

hi,

well, i got the exact card you did a month ago, and i had numerous problems running HL2 w/ it.

1st...be sure you are using the latest ATI drivers.

i use CAT 4.12 (seems to improve HL2 and Doom3 FPS, etc)

i've tried the CAT 5.1, but didn't like it.

that IS a great card, just make sure that you've ALSO installed and updated your mobo drivers, especially the AGP drivers on your mobo itself.

1GB of RAM will definitely speed up your load times and give an overall performance boost for your pc as well.

that CPU isn't too shabby...i'd invest in more RAM right now.

currently i am running an

aSuS A8V deluxe
AMD63 3000+ (socket 939)
Radeon 9800pro 128mb 256bit
1GB Crucial pc3200

and w/ that setup i get 120-200FPS some areas, then it drops to about 60FPS during a lot of explosions.

so...update drivers first...

then run spyware again...

add more RAM....

your mobo manual should tell you if you can run 1GB...i'm pretty sure you can though..

gotta link? or just call your manufacturer...

how many memory slots do you have?