Upgrade advice please..!

[Guest Fortress]

Hi all,I currently have some spare cash burning a hold in my pocket, and it seems like a good time to upgrade. I'm running:XP2800+Gigabyte G7NNXP M/B (supports upto 3200+ and 3.5GB RAM)1 Gig (2 x 512) PC3200 RAMGainward GF4-4200ti graphicsAudigy (1) Player....my first impulse would be to shell-out for the XP3200+ processor, but what would you do?All answers very gratefully received! :-)Cheers,Paulhttp://www.strontiumdog.plus.com/sbird.jpgwww.BAVirtual.co.uk[p]Officially licenced by British Airways plc for use of name and logo[/p]

[gosta]

Hi Paul,definitely the graphics card. With adequate cooling you can get your XP2800 to run near 3200 specs, and it wouldn't be too much of an improvement anyway. Plus your RAM runs at a higher FSB than the CPU, so you should get good results when overclocking (increase the CPU FSB and keep the RAM in sync).A good graphics card, however (like the ATI 9800XT or nVidia FX 5950) would give you some very noticeable improvements.Cheers,Gosta.http://www.hifisim.com/images/as2betateam.jpg

[Guest Fortress]

Thanks very much Gosta. Not all that keen on overclocking (bad experience once!), but I'll focus my attention on the graphics card as you suggest.Thanks again :-)Cheers,Paulhttp://www.strontiumdog.plus.com/sbird.jpgwww.BAVirtual.co.uk[p]Officially licenced by British Airways plc for use of name and logo[/p]

[Guest Fortress]

Gosta,this sound OK to you?http://www.dabs.com/uk/productView.htm?quicklinx=33RRCheers,Paulhttp://www.strontiumdog.plus.com/sbird.jpgwww.BAVirtual.co.uk[p]Officially licenced by British Airways plc for use of name and logo[/p]

[gosta]

Hi Paul,unfortunately the page comes up blank, but I gather it's a Gainward GeForce FX5900XT. That should be a good card. Personally, I've had very good experience with the Radeon 9700 Pro/9800 series, so it might be worthwile looking into those as well. Just compare prices, read the reviews and decide which one suits your needs better. Try not to get sucked in by one of those 'ATI vs. nVidia' debates :). Fact is that right now, their products are very close in quality, so that you simply can't make blanket statements like 'nVidia is better' - you really have to compare the individual cards.Cheers,Gosta.http://www.hifisim.com/images/as2betateam.jpg