Whats Video Card Should I Get?

[Solidus]

I want to uograde my voodoo3 3000 video card, and I realized I know nothing of the current video cards on the market. I play 3d games mostly. I was wondering if anyone can tell me the best card in the $250 price range, the $200 price range, and $150 price range. I also would like to now if its a better idea to upgrade my video card or my proccesor. I'm currently running an amd k6-2 450 with 128MB pc100 ram. Should i upgrade the video card, processor, or ram first? and what should i upgrade to?

[Dave2]

Your bottleneck is your CPU. A processor upgrade will benefit you much more than a video card upgrade. With $250 you can buy yourself an Athlon 650 with an Asus K7M motherboard. You have enough RAM and a decent video card for games.

[BBA]

Agreed.

CPU could be the best performance enhancer you can do right now.

Get the fastest you can afford. Athlon or P3...doesn't matter, whichever you get the best price on. ( A P3 800 is only $225 or so, and a MB can be had for less than $60 )

[Snuffy!]

Yeah, a Voodoo3 3000 will still kick **** for games, and 128mb ram is plenty, when u get yerself a new cpu, the frame rate in yer games will get a big boost.

[daveleau]

With a new CPU, you'll also have to get a new mobo. You can stay with AMD and get a Duron or go with a Celeron for a budget package that should keep you under $250. Both CPUs are good overclockers. The Celeron 566 goes up to 900+ while the Duron does slightly less but with higher performance.
Dave

[Missing the point]

Davleau:

Actually, if you got a GlobalWin Heatsink/Fan, a Duron 650/700 is almost guarenteed to go to 950MHz http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/biggrin.gif

[Entragian ][]

You will more than likely get a better price on an Athlon. Good thing to, because then you can squeeze another 100-200 MHz out of it overclocking with no stability issues.
Asus K7M (good Mobo) figure $140 (high $$)
Athlon 650 figure $100 (850 overclocked depending on core)

Ok, so now you have CPU speed, Good amount of ram and a video card that can still handle high resolution games smoothly.

Ent

[Solidus]

Thanks, guys. I have a little more money than i thought i would, so I think i'll get a 700 Mhz Thunderbird. I found one for $145, shipped. Can I overclock it to 1 Ghz? I know relatively little about overclocking. My 450 is overclocked to 473 with no extra cooling, only because i can change the jumper setting on my BIOS. Can you do this with other motherboards, or do you have to physically change it? And, what kind of cooling should i get, and where should i get it? Sorry for all these questions, i just wanna make sure i get the most for my money. Last question: What motherboard should i get?

[This message has been edited by Solidus (edited 09-11-2000).]

[Missing the point]

I actually think you should get a Duron 650, and overclock that to a gig, or at least 950. The TBird don't oveclock as well, because they are running at 1.75V stock, whereas the Duron runs at 1.5. The Max voltage for any Socket A processor is 1.85, so the Duron can get .35V, whereas the TBird can only go .15 above stock.

Thats just my opinion..........

[Missing the point]

ANOTHER double post!!

[This message has been edited by Missing the point (edited 09-11-2000).]

[Solidus]

How about the duron 700? And, are durons also slot As? do they use they same motherboards as athlons? Will a fan designed for an athlon fit on a duron?

[This message has been edited by Solidus (edited 09-14-2000).]

[Dave2]

A Duron 700 is roughly as fast as an Athlon 650. It's about the same price too. However you must buy a more expensive motherboard if you're going for the Duron since the Slot A motherboard's don't support Duron's. If you can, spend a few more bucks on the Duron 700 w/ A7V motherboard because AMD's Socket A motherboards are more future-proof.