What to upgrade? CPU or video card?

[DMan]

Hi folks, right now I'm running on this setup:

AMD K6-2 450
FIC VA503+ mb
128MB PC100 ram
CLabs TNT2

Now, I was wondering if I should upgrade the CPU to something like a P3 800-850 or if upgrading the vid card to a cheaper GeForce would work too. I am mainly a gamer and play stuff like Quake 3 and even Everquest. Would merely upgrading the vid card be sufficient to up my fps in Quake 3? I'm asking b/c I saw a friend running a Celeron 300 with a generic GeForce card and it was smoother than what I had on my machine, so I thought maybe simply upgrading the vid card would do the trick. Mind you, the TNT2 was my latest upgrade, maybe 6 months ago or so. Any advice is appreciated.

[Dputiger]

If cost is a big factor, get the following:

AMD Duron 600 (approx $50)
ABIT KT-7 (if Overclocking) $145
GeForce MX ($100)

For approximately $300 bucks (easily what you'd pay for P-III + mobo) you can get a greate machine. That Duron 600, even if NOT OCced, will easily break 100 fps in Quake 3. That'll leave your friend's Celly in the dirt.

[This message has been edited by Dputiger (edited 12-30-2000).]

[nunyadam]

dputiger is right on the money. follow his advice on this and you will not be sorry!
my system
A7V m/b
duron 700@950mhz
fop-32
128meg generic ram (soon to be 256)
asus 50x cd
4/4/32 cd/writer
sblive value
ibm 30gig ata 100 hdd
rockwell 56k vhq modem
aopen 10/100 nic
hercules 3d prophet gforce mx
several assorted fan's(from a little 486 fan upto a 4 1/2 inch intake fan from an old server)
and how could i forget the arctic silver paste.


[This message has been edited by nunyadam (edited 12-29-2000).]

[NDD]

How can there be AMD related forum without ND ?!?!

Go with Dputigers' advice ... Duron with gF2 MX can be fine package 4u ...

[AndreRIO]

i recommend a thunderbird 900mhz - dont buy celeron or duron.

[DemonKnight]

A duron is only slightly less powerful than a t.bird but once overclocked (even not overclocked) with a decent video card you wont really notice any differance. I think the main difference in duron and athlon is the size of the cache.

[DMan]

Thx for the advice. I never even considered a Duron. I'm gonna read up on it now =)

[Dputiger]

I want to be clear:

A P3 850 will outperform a Duron at 600-800 Mhz. However, not if you keep the P3 running on a TNT2.

So the Duron is the best TOTAL upgrade decision coupled with a new video card. If your doing stuff that depends almost solely on the processor, the P3 may be better.

Advice: Find benchmarks/comparisons of these CPU's using your favorite software.

[DMan]

With the Duron/Abit combo, has anyone read or experienced any compatibility problems? Currently I have a few third party drivers installed to keep my K6-2 running at an "optimal" level, but it's kind of a pain to keep hunting for these drivers.

[Long Haired Hippie Phreek]

Just for games the Duron is a good processor, the extra cache of the thunderbird and pentium 3 are only realy felt when doing graphics work and stuff. Quake 3 is also 3dnow! enabled, so a duron gets another point over an intel.

[NDD]

Quake 3 is also SSE optimized, and you can argue hours what optimization is better, but Duron still beats Pentium3 at the same clock frequency running Win98, not Win2k ...

Best Regards ...