Upgrade advice from "GeForce2 MX 200"

[andyd]

I'm currently running a nVIDIA GeForce2 MX 200 card & am looking to upgrade cos I'm on a bit of a rampage trying to get my machine up to reasonable spec for a bit of gaming and web/graphic design.

Based on my specs below can anyone suggest a good performance card that is reliable running on XP Pro SP2?

Alternatively should I consider scrapping my system and going new?... I'm just a newbie so I really don't have much of an idea?!

Thanks in advance guys!

Motherboard: ECS K7S5A
CPU: AMD Athlon XP, 1466 MHz (11 x 133) 1700+
Memory: 1GB DDR SDRAM
Video: nVIDIA GeForce2 MX 200
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional

 

[spartanslayer]

You CPU is rather old, but adequate for most things. How much money can you afford to spend? Would you rather play games at full graphics, or just run them? Let me know!

 

[andyd]

I would rather play them at full graphics & I've just bought myself a copy of MS Flight Simulator 2004 so I'd like to get myself up to speed to run that 'nicely'.

As for pricing... Im hppy to go up the lengths of £200 - £300 but would consider more if that's what it would take?!

Is replacing my CPU an option? Sorry if this is like one of the stupidest questions ever... I just upgraded my memory, HD & installed a new ethernet card so I'm in that place where I'd try anything!! :haha:

 

[Cartz]

I would rather play them at full graphics & I've just bought myself a copy of MS Flight Simulator 2004 so I'd like to get myself up to speed to run that 'nicely'.

As for pricing... Im hppy to go up the lengths of £200 - £300 but would consider more if that's what it would take?!

Is replacing my CPU an option? Sorry if this is like one of the stupidest questions ever... I just upgraded my memory, HD & installed a new ethernet card so I'm in that place where I'd try anything!! :haha:

The trick to upgrading your machine right now is finding the sweet spot where neither of your components bottleneck one another... You're obviously on AGP, do you know if it's an 8x AGP board?

I'd say that you'd probably want to look at a Nvidia 6800GS as the maximum (7800GS is out, but its pricey, and it would definately face major bottleneck from your processor)

Now is really not a good time to go new platform, as both major chipp makers are about to adopt new platforms... So I'd hold off on upgrading processor/mobo/ram until AM2 or the new Intel platform hits the stores. For FS2004, you might even want to consider something along the lines of an X600 AGP, as they would give better performance, and should be under a hundred bucks these days.

The trick with that rig is not to go too big, since you'll notice very diminishing returns to scale (due to bottlenecking) with the faster cards.

 

[spartanslayer]

True, however the new Processor set really won't be all that much better than current stuff. Give me the specs of your rig, such as:

Ram, amount and type.
CPU, socket.
Video Card, socket.
Motherboard.
Power Supply.
Hard Drive.

Good, and how many $ are pounds?