My guess is that you are still running Win98 or WinME, as well.  I bring
this up, because most new games will be expecting you to have WinXP as your
operating system, and between the game and the OS, you'll likely find that
512MB of RAM is pretty much the minimum, and 1GB probably is more suitable.

This is one more reason why it probably makes more sense to go ahead and
build or buy a new system at this point.  While you might be able to get a
little more milage out of your current system with a new video card, I think
that doing so will also serve to highlight the other limitations of your
system (OS, processor, memory).  Of course, whether this will really be a
problem or not, for you, will depend on the games that you are interested
in.

I think the 6600GT is a good middle level gaming video card.  It should keep
up with most of today's games, though perhaps not at the very highest
resolutions and graphics settings.  (It is mainly limited by only having
128mb of video memory and having less memory bandwidth than the faster
cards.)  You could match this up with a lower end Athlon 64 and have a very
capable system.  Might as well get this all in the PCIe flaver, as it seems
to be the direction the industry is going.

Generally, you can get away with putting a little more into the capabilities
of your video card these days, relative to the processor.  Your system will
end up being bound by the CPU, but many of the fancy shader features that
everyone is talking about with the latest games are handled almost
exclusively by the video card's hardware.  You'll be able to enjoy them with
a newer card.

John Sproule


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeremy Sheehan" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, June 25, 2005 6:41 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] Should I Upgrade?


>I currently have a Dell Dimension Series Computer (about 4 years old).  The
>specs are: Intel Pentium 3 1Ghz processer, 384 RAM, a 20 Gig hard drive,
>and a nVidia GeForce 2 MX/MX 400 Graphics Card.  I want to play relatively
>new games (not neccesarily the most cutting edge).  I have three questions.
>
> 1. Can I install a new graphics card on my computer (I know that when you
> buy computers from Dell, sometimes things, like the processor, can't be
> upgraded.) So I am not sure if this is possible, and if so, how hard it
> would be.
>
> 2. Is it worth it to upgrade my computer or to buy a new one.  If I were
> to upgrade, I would only be looking to spend around $200 ((I was looking
> at a nVidia Geforce 6600GT Graphics card and 128 more RAM).  But if it
> costs over $300 to do a decent upgrade, then I might as wel
> l buy a new computer.
>
> 3. This kind of goes along with the previous question.  How much does the
> processor have to do with performance and ability to run a game.  What I
> mean is, do a decent graphics card and RAM make up for a low end processor
> such as mine.

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