Trying to squeeze blood from a turnip

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D'Artagnan1673

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Hi all,

I have some questions for you gurus who have more time and expertise than I have in this area. I am trying to upgrade my computer without going overboard and hacking off the Mrs. She's being benevolent in letting me do some upgrading but I am not sure how far she'll let me go.

Here is a breakdown of my current system:
AMD Athlon XP 1800
ECS KT-600a Socket Ahttp://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWeb/Products/ProductsDetail.aspx?DetailID=360&MenuID=24&LanID=9
1 Gig DDR400
WD 40 gig 7200 RPM

Here is what I am trying to do.
I am trying to spend around $500.00-650.00 with the following

AMD Athlon XP 3000
WD 74 Gig Raptor
1 gig Kingston DDR400
ATI Radeon X1300 or X1600 AGP

However, I note on ECS' product sheet (refer to hyperlink) that their AGP 4/8x slot can only handle 2.1 gb/s. On this linkATI Specs it appears that both of these cards far outperform what my motherboard can do. If I am reading this correctly, I had better seriously consider upgrading my motherboard as well, no?

Thanks in advance for all of your help!
 
Why are you replacing your RAM? You'd be much better off keeping your RAM, droping the raptor (it's a waste in a rig like yours), and using the money to get a better video card instead, like a 7800gs.
 
Dump the Raptor...

Yeah, in the back of my head I think that will happen. I definately need to get another HD as my wife wants to start converting our home videos to DVD (we have a 1-year old). I was somewhat figuring that a Raptor was only going to show a system boost if everything was top of the line.

Replace the Ram...

I was planning to add to my existing RAM. Personally, I didn't see too much of a difference in system performance from 512 to 1gig. However, I am not using that 3dMark program I hear about, only my perception. However, in spite of this opinion, I still hear the more RAM the better.

Personally I am fond of ATI, but I have little grounded reason for this. As for games, I like to play Rome: Total War, and I am trying to build my system up to be able to play MTW:II, which is coming out this year. I rarely play first person shooters although I see that any system upgrade will make something like Call of Duty II run superb on my current system.

I also have Star Wars: Empire at War and I get a small amount of performance degredation when running at mid-level graphics with 1/2 the anti-aliasing running.

I keep my machine pretty well cleaned up, I am a techie after all.
Thanks again for any advice.
 
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