What should I do?

[17059]

I have been saving money for a while now and i want to upgrade my computer, its performance playing newer games is poor even at the lowest of resolutions and quality;

120gig hard drive (7200rpm ATA-100)
AMD athlon +2400 (2.00ghz)
ATI radeon 9550 AGP 4x
MSI KM2M combo MS-6738 (v1.1) Micro ATX mainboard
512mb ram PC2700

How can I upgrade this system so that it will be a highly better performing than it is now?

[Yawgm0th]

Re: What should I do?

That system isn't so weak that performance should be "poor even at the lowest of resolutions and quality." I have a 1GHz Athon with a 9600XT and 512MB of PC3200, and it performs fine in F.E.A.R. and Battlefield 2 at 800x600, but not with all settings at lowest. It would be lowest if I had a 9550, but that's nothing a little overclocking can't fix. Some performance tweaking might fix any problems your CPU gives you.

If you were to upgrade that system, the video card would be the only thing that's a major necessity. A 6600GT would probably be a good card for that system, assuming your PSU can handle it. If you really have some monet to spend, you could replace the motherboard and processor and get a socket 939 Athlon 64 system, as well as a new video card (only a PCI Express one). If you do that, see if you can afford a 6800GS, which is a really good card for the price. You might want to upgrade to 1 or 2GBs of RAM, if you can afford it, but the 512MB of PC2700 won't kill performance on the new system.

[TRIGGER]

Re: What should I do?

I would say just get a 6600gt and another 512stick and keep it another year.

[AsianBatman]

Re: What should I do?

Yea, i would just get another vid and some more ram. Yawg i think people have different definition of poor for video performance. For example, anything below 60 fps is poor in my point of view.