New system brag sheet

[CERuppel]

OK, I know that this is not the hottest thing on the market.

But it is my thing, and the best I can afford right now.

The new stuff:

AMD Athlon 1900+
256Meg DDR 2700 (single chip)
MSI Mobo (KM2M Combo-L)
generic case and 300 watt power sopply.

The old stuff:

Western Digital 40 gig hard drive
generic 3.2 gig hard drive
52X CD-Rom
Floppy

The neat things:

The processor was supposed to be a Duron, but they had sold out so the store bumped it to an Athlon.
The Mobo has both an onboard video (up to 32 meg shared) and an AGP port (up to 4X).
THe sound... I have always had good things to say about the local CBW, and this is just another such. The power supply, case fan, and processor fan combined are almost totally silent. The background noise of the nieghborhood is more than the noise from this box. (Not my doing. The fans and power supply were the ones that CBW uses for its 'special' builds).

Now for the question: Would the video upgrade be better off not happening, or going for a mid range card, or would this set up hold up to a better card?

[Bruneau]

lookin good bud. SHMOKIN System!

[wju425]

Sounds good. Good thing they didn't have durons so you ended up with an xp. Durons are great performers but once you get a taste of xps you won't look back.
I know because I upgraded from a 1gig duron to an xp1700. About the video card, it depends on what you expect out of it. Are you a gamer? To the extreme? A 4x agp video card will probably perform better than the onboard.

\o/ Billy

[Bones1]

Hi CE

If you aren't doing serious gaming that onboard vid will do just fine.

I run an all-in-one baord (PIII 1G) at work which I just use for internet, coping CD's, doing word prossesing etc (and ECC2). It works just fine but the bad thing it does take away from the RAM. I went into the BIOS and set the vid card to only take 8Meg of the system memory insted of 32. I only have 128Meg installed RAM or should I say 120 now.

Jim

[CERuppel]

Should have been clearer. I am not the cutting edge gamer, but I do like to kill things on the PC (instead of real life). I would like to get a vid card for this system when I can afford one.

What would be the best card for this system. Keep in mind that the chipset is a VIA KT266, and that the board is not super, but is stable.

Thanx

[wju425]

At least a 32meg will do as long it's 4x. You'll probably find a 64meg fairly cheap now. I'm using an nvidia riva tnt2 32meg 4x on my via kt133a and it works great.

\o/ Billy

[Jeordiewhite]

Nice system
A geforce 2 or 3 is decently priced and would be great for your games, no need to go way back to get an old outdated card when the good ones are pretty cheap now days.
http://cpureview.pricegrabber.com/se...e1e84eaee86ea9

[jmebonner]

I'm using a Radeon 8500 (NOT the LE version, it's lousy) 64MB DDR, It hasn't let me down yet with games like JediKnight, BF1942, and Bond Nightfire all settings maxed. Can be found for <90 probably

[joxsfunk]

go for geforce 4 ti 4200! itll smoke those bad guys from the face of yor monitor!