Possible upgrade on new machine?

Dcully

Ok chaps ive recently aquired a new machine from Elara and am wondering about a possible upgrade in a couple of months time.
Im getting serious performance as it is but one always wants to improve ones syetem
After all HL2 and DOOM 2 are on the way.

Im considering either more ram or new GFX card possibly a Radeon 9700 128mb 248 yoyos on Komplett.The 9800 PRO is way over my budget but is the 9700 much better than my current card?
What ya think chaps?

New machine:

P4 2.8 Ghz 800FSB,
Musckin 512 DDR 3200,
80Gig 7,200 rpm HD,
GF4 TI4200 Ultra\650 8xAGP,
17"CTX 85hz Monitor,
WinXP.

Creamy Goodness

the 9700 isn't way faster than your current card granted it is better but it's not worth spending 268 euros cos the gf4 will run hl2 with out a glitch

feylya

I can safely say that your machine will run Doom 2 without a doubt :-)

Col_Loki

Is your RAM is combined of 2 chips ie 2x256MB. This takes advantage of Dual DDR. U would want to check your manual to see if all your ram slots support PC3200 (DDR400) ram - Alot of motherboards only support DDR400 on 2 slots - This means if your upgrading you will have to remove one 256MB dimm and replace it with a 512mb for example.

The RAM timings of that mushkin ram is quite impressive, Dont think you would find much of a performance increase by changing.

Think video card is the way to go, the Ti4200 is a good card - i would wait till the price of the 9700 pro & 9800 pro go down.

Komplett have been having probs trying to get the 9700 in, has been backordered for a couple of months.

Mabye surround sound & Audigy card too keep u occupied??

Gerry

yup, wait until 9700 / 9800 price drops, sure Doom 3 isn't even out yet!