RAM or graphics card?

[Radur]

I know I need to upgrade my computer, but I'm on a tight budget. I currently have only 32MB of RAM, and an onboard 8MB AGP graphics card. I was wondering which is more important, a voodoo 3 PCI graphics card or 64MB of RAM

[mreverready]

Lo m8,
IMO i'd go for the 3D card, it'll make a BIG difference compared to your onboard Video Card.
Offcourse this all depends on whether you play games that need a good card or only play games that don't.
So whats your gaming preference and what proccessor u use ?

mr.

[[HLnC]Jay-Dee]

well u could do with both really
the v3 is about £50 now
and to bring u up to 64mb of ram would cost about £30
maybe u could use those buy.com coupons posted on here last week and save some money :)

[Deathwish2000]

I would get the RAM, much better, as long as you get DIMM ram and PC100 so that if you upgrade if would be compatible with your new stuff.

[PADDYBOY]

If you can only get one or the other get some RAM - it will improve overall system performance a lot and will allow you to play more games than a new Graphics card (for example, UT and OIII both need 64 meg at least to be even remotely playable no matter what type of graphics card you have)

[mreverready]

The reason I said a new Card is that onboard AGP cards tend not to be 3D cards only 2D, they call them 3D but they ain't as i know to my cost. So no 3D card no Q3 or UT anyway, thats why i asked what proccessor he uses and what games he will be playing, no use getting a 3D card if he don't play 3D games, get the RAM instead.

mr

[Radur]

Thanks for all the advice guys.
I currently have a Celeron 333. I play games like Half-life, and I even tried running Deus Ex on my machine, but it was way too slow. I got the UT demo working on my machine at quite a low res, but it was still very playable.
BTW, Where could I get those Buy.com coupons?

[[HLnC]Jay-Dee]

just do a search of the hardware forum for them

[hurricane hicken]

Does your onboard graphics card take some of your system RAM, if so you will solve 2 problems in one. FPS tend to benfit from a fast graphics card as they take load away from the CPU. The hardware on the card textures the scene so the cpu can leave that alone. If you have to get a PCI card, as presumably there is not AGP slot, get a V3 3000,current price about £70. It's not a very modern card but was designed to give you a high polygon rate in 16 bit colour. Better cards are available, but most are only in AGP form.

If I was you, I'd also clock the Celeron up a bit. It's well out of date so if you do fry it,it's not a great loss, as it's worth FU. This will also raise the transfer rate from the memory and PCI bus. Try a 75MHz speed first if you can. I don't think this will even need to have the voltage raised to keep it stable either.

[Fragchild]

A 333 may hit 500Mhz with upgraded cooling and if the voltage was increased.

[hurricane hicken]

But this all depends what other components you have in your box, and how they take overclocking the PCI/AGP/ASI buses. So the better idea generally is to take it up one step at a time, until you find those limits.

[Fragchild]

A 333 has a multiplier of 5 so when running at 500MHz the bus will be at 100MHz and everything will be in spec, thats the best option as most of the lower speed celly's could overclock by 50%(300,333,366) unless he has PC66 ram, but if he had that, he would most likely also have a mobo which didn't allow much room to overclock.

[Radur]

OK, the only settings for my FSB in my BIOS are 66Mhz and 100Mhz, so it's either 333 or 500. At 500, it freezes during startup. I guess I need to increase the voltage, but that would involve the risky nail-polish procedure. I'm too much of a chicken to try it. Is there anyone here who has done it and succeeded?