One More Upgrade Help Topic

[Sparda_X]

I have been recently thinking about an upgrade, Im on a budget so it cant be anything extreme, here are my basic choices:

I can Improve my graphics, or processing, but I cant choose both

If I choose graphics, here is what I have in mind:

ELSA GF3 64meg -> ATI Radeon 9500 PRO 128meg or MSI GF4 TI 4200 128meg

In this case I would keep my current processor, witch is a Athlon XP 1800

If i choose procesing...

Athlon XP 1800 -> Athlon XP 2700

also, in this case I would keep my GF3

I cant decide witch one to go for, Im am prety hard core into games, and i want to be able to play the games that will be coming around the end of the year. I have bechmarked my pc and it satys around 50-48 FPS in Unreal engine games, so considering how much more complex, Doom 3, Far Cry and Half life 2 are going to be, I need to have acceptable frames with those

One more detail, is that my PC is always on, so I cant have a graphics card that heats up easily, as I cant easily modify cooling for it

So what do u guys think, where will I get the most out of with games, procesing or graphics?

 

[Martin]

The transition from GF3 to GF4 is nothing more than a DX8 card to DX8.1.

I find the Radeon 9500 Pro to be faster (even than the GeForce4 Ti 4600) and with more potential (DirectX 9 technologies should be easier on developers wanting to implement programmable features in games, than on DX8.x). I can't quite comment on the heat dissipation, but I'm guessing it would be similar to that of an equivalent GeForce4 Ti-based card. However, the Radeon 9500 Pro will require an extra power boost from the supply.

You should only upgrade that 1800+ of yours, that is, if it were less than 1.2-1.4 GHz, as the 2700+ would see a difference from that point on.

 

[Sparda_X]

Nice to know all that Like my 1800+ is 1.5 Ghz than the processor change would'nt be the best idea right?

Well regarding the power supply, im using a 500wat supply, I cheked in ATI's site and they say min is a 300wat for ''normal system operation''. They say that the ATI 9500 requires a conection from the supply, would that be like the one used in the HD? they didnt specify that

 

[Martin]

The Radeon 9500 Pro/9600/9700/9800 etc. will include a Y-cable which will plug into the card on one end, then require two connections from the power supply (the connector which are similar to the other devices in the machine).