Few questions before I upgrade

R

r00fies

Veteran XV
Currently I'm running on am AMD 2700+ (2.2GHz) 333MHz FSB, with 1GB DDR 333MHz RAM and an ATI 9800 Pro 128mb video card. What I plan on upgrading to, is an AMD 64 3700+ (2.2GHz) 1GHz FSB, with 1GB DDR 400MHz RAM and keeping my ATI card.

Question is: If I keep my 9800 Pro with my upgrade, will the upgrade be noticable while playing games? Will I be able to play modern games at a higher resolution/texture rate? Or will my video card restrict me too much in this area, and force me to play around the current settings I do at the moment? If needed I probably could upgrade my video, but I really don't want to at the moment.

I don't really have a very big budget for this upgrade. $550 at most so I'm trying to keep it a little low. With what I've mentioned (from NewEGG.com) costs me around $380.

edit- I'd like to add, my PSU is (I believe) 400W. Is that enough wattage to power this new upgrade or would I need to upgrade that aswell?
 
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I doubt you're going to see much improvement.

CAN you even keep your old video card? You're going to have to get a motherboard with both PCI Express AND AGP if you want to keep it.

I think your PSU would be enough if it's a quality PSU. Also, what motherboard is that? You can't run the CPU at 400 FSB with a different multiplier and the memory too?
 
Don't waste your money. You're killing any upgrade path you have by getting an AGP only motherboard.
 
Understood

Do you have any suggestions for some good, yet affordable PCIx videocards? I'm sure I can squeeze a few more bucks into my spending money if that's what I need to upgrade to, sometime :p:
 
I would save up until you could afford to upgrade everything. That AGP to PCI-e change really fucked us AGP folks over. :(
 
It's PCIe (for express), not PCIx. They're different things FYI. :)

But you're going over my head now. I don't know since I haven't been keeping up with video cards and performance so you're going to have to check out reviews on sites. I'm pretty far behind. Sorry. :(
 
Yes that card will shit all over your radeon 9800 pro , that mobo is good and the ram and processor is good. That new setup will be a HUGE improvement over your old system.
 
My only option? Doubt it.

I don't really know any good online hardware stores, but I know NewEGG has good service/prices, so I've stuck with them. If you know any others, I'd gladly look into them and shop around.
 
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