The answer to your question is to get the Video card first, but don't wait
too long to update your CPU. At this kind of upgrade point, the two working
together will make a synergistic difference.

The G450 is a great 2D and work card. This is my primary workstation card.
It is the standard by which 2D is judged.  However it is a poor game card.
In a 3D gaming environment it will run like a TNT2 Ultra which is 1999
technology.But unless you are a die hard gamer, and since you are on a
budget, I would suggest you get a slower and cheaper (50 to $75) GEForce
card now and see what happens in the Graphics market. If you're an
occasional gamer, then I don't think you will notice much real world
difference.

ANY GEForce card will blow the Matrox G450 away in a 3D game environment.
Even a 50 dollar GEForce2 GTX . You can get one of these with 64 megs of
RAM for around 50 to 75 dollars. NVIDIA is presently dominating the high
end graphics market.  Right now your best bang for the buck will be either
a GEForce 4 MX in the 100 to 125 price range, or a GEForce 2 Ultra  around
100 bucks used, or a GEGorce 3 T200 around 150 new. Both older cards will
outperform the GForce 4 MX Currently the fastest non commercial card
available will be GeForce 4 Ti 4600 and will run you around 300 to 400
dollars US. There are also rumors of a new Matrox G800 card that is in
development that will double the performance of the current NVIDIA. You can
never keep up, or spend too much money, in the high end gamer market!

If you want to get a feel for the graphics market I highly recommend this
article
7 Years of Graphics   http://www.accelenation.com/?doc=123&page=1


Rode
The NOSPIN Group

At 11:17 PM 4/10/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>The Matrox 450 is a good card, so IMHO it would be a bigger boost to
>increase your processor speed by 250% on a better mobo.  The new card
>won't operate at its limits on a 400 mhz CPU and old mobo as opposed to
>the old card working at its limits on a new CPU and mobo.
>
> >I'm looking at upgrading my system (mainly with an eye towards 3D games)
> >and I'd like to know what would be the best move for my limited budget.
> >
> >I have Win98 with AMD 400, 256 SDRam, Matrox 450. The upgrade would be Asus
> >A7V 133 mboard, Duron 1000 and a graphics card based on the GeForce 3 GTS
> >chip, however I can't buy all three components at once.
> >
> >The question is, would I get a better performance boost (remember, 3D
> >games) from the mboard/CPU combination or the graphics card?

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