System upgrade for F12002 and Nr2002

Hi, I'm looking to upgrade the following system for the purpose of getting better performances in my games: Athlon Thunderbird 900mhz Soyo MB K7vtapro 512mb PC 133 sdram (cas3) 60gb IBM Desktar HD ATI Radeon 7500 Will I see any increase if I first upgrade the cpu for an Athlon XP 1600 or 1800+ ? I'd like to be able to have good perfs at 1024X768 Is there a significant speed boost if I chage the mobo and the ram to get a kt333 system with ddr memory ? Is the Radeon 7500 simply outdated for these kind of games (Or is the CPU a bottleneck for the card) ? Finally, do you know a site that compares the performance differences of different Athlon configurations ? Thanks a lot! Alain

"Barjo" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

Quoted text (10 lines)

> Hi, > > I'm looking to upgrade the following system for the purpose of > getting better performances in my games: > > Athlon Thunderbird 900mhz > Soyo MB K7vtapro > 512mb PC 133 sdram (cas3) > 60gb IBM Desktar HD > ATI Radeon 7500

I've always felt the single biggest increase comes from doubling your CPU. Next the video card, then memory, subsystems, and finally the motherboard. You just can't beat raw power. AMD 2000+ are becomming fairly prevalent, You could swap your video card for a newer video card, but it would be wasting some of it's power waiting for the cpu to send it more graphic info. Your hard drive is already good and that wouldn't affect most gaming situations. Memory, going from pc133 to 333 level stuff just won't be noticable...usually what you see with memory is the lower threshold in more easily seen...i.e. the point where your system begins to choke...it won't seem much faster on the top end...it just will keep running smoother where in the past, with slower memory, you would have see slowdowns on the screen. So if your motherboard bios can support newer chips...go for as MUCH cpu as you can afford. It's the single greatest factor on framerate. (unless you have such a stinker vid card that your whole video subsystem is outdated..) The 7500 ain't the fastest dog but it ain' t the slowest either...avoid high resolutions and it will last a-bit longer... Whatever you do, don't exceed 512 meg of Ram if you have Win9x.(it's not a huge proble, there are even workarounds, but you are essentially wasting money that could be spent on cpu power.) dave henrie

Quoted text (16 lines)

> > Will I see any increase if I first upgrade the cpu for an Athlon XP > 1600 or 1800+ ? I'd like to be able to have good perfs at 1024X768 > > Is there a significant speed boost if I chage the mobo and the ram to > get a kt333 system with ddr memory ? > > Is the Radeon 7500 simply outdated for these kind of games (Or is the > CPU a bottleneck for the card) ? > > Finally, do you know a site that compares the performance differences > of different Athlon configurations ? > > Thanks a lot! > Alain >

Dave is right on go for CPU power first. Alot of the older boards will run XP chips with a BIOS flash. So you may want to lok into that. MadDAWG

Thanks a lot. I think I'll go for a new cpu. My board support all Athlon Xp up to 2100+ so it won't be a problem. ciao! Alain

Quoted text (45 lines)

>> Athlon Thunderbird 900mhz >> Soyo MB K7vtapro >> 512mb PC 133 sdram (cas3) >> 60gb IBM Desktar HD >> ATI Radeon 7500 > > I've always felt the single biggest increase comes from doubling your >CPU. Next the video card, then memory, subsystems, and finally the >motherboard. > You just can't beat raw power. AMD 2000+ are becomming fairly prevalent, >You could swap your video card for a newer video card, but it would be >wasting some of it's power waiting for the cpu to send it more graphic info. >Your hard drive is already good and that wouldn't affect most gaming >situations. Memory, going from pc133 to 333 level stuff just won't be >noticable...usually what you see with memory is the lower threshold in more >easily seen...i.e. the point where your system begins to choke...it won't >seem much faster on the top end...it just will keep running smoother where >in the past, with slower memory, you would have see slowdowns on the screen. > So if your motherboard bios can support newer chips...go for as MUCH cpu >as you can afford. >It's the single greatest factor on framerate. (unless you have such a >stinker vid card that your whole video subsystem is outdated..) The 7500 >ain't the fastest dog but it ain' t the slowest either...avoid high >resolutions and it will last a-bit longer... >Whatever you do, don't exceed 512 meg of Ram if you have Win9x.(it's not a >huge proble, there are even workarounds, but you are essentially wasting >money that could be spent on cpu power.) >dave henrie >> >> Will I see any increase if I first upgrade the cpu for an Athlon XP >> 1600 or 1800+ ? I'd like to be able to have good perfs at 1024X768 >> >> Is there a significant speed boost if I chage the mobo and the ram to >> get a kt333 system with ddr memory ? >> >> Is the Radeon 7500 simply outdated for these kind of games (Or is the >> CPU a bottleneck for the card) ? >> >> Finally, do you know a site that compares the performance differences >> of different Athlon configurations ? >> >> Thanks a lot! >> Alain >> >