Upgrade advice plz! Techhie peeps here :)

[[ItK]LoveSpud]

I have a PII400 processor, my m'board only supports up to PIII500, I have a matrox G400max graphics card and 128mb of ram. My main priority is to up my frame rates for 1st person shooters (mostly CS) as at the moment my FPS hovers between 15-45 fps. As I see it I have 3 options:

1. New motherboard and processor, something which I've never attempted to replace, I know people who could help but it could take time to get em round to do it.

2. New graphics card.

3. An evergreen processor upgrade to the equivalent of a 800MHz PIII for £329, which might not be as powerful as option 1 for the same/similar price but a darn site easier.

My max budget is £350

SO any opinions gratefully received :)

[EARTHWALKER]

1:Overclockers are doing an Abit KT7A-RAID/AMD Thunderbird 1GHz Guaranteed to 1.15GHz+/GlobalWin FOP32-1 for £288.09 (£338.51 Including VAT at 17.5%) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_AMD_TBird_Bundles_40.html (second one down) :)


2: The Matrox g400 max is a nice card... Not brilliant but still nice :)

3: /me slaps Mr Spud for saying Evergr**n!

NEXT!...

[Biggus]

Just getting a faster CPU will not help as much as getting a slightly slower CPU and a faster graphics card.

Try this instead, it has the same motherboard Abit KT7A-RAID, but uses a Duron 800 guaranteed to run at 1GHz @ £217.97
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_AMD_Duron_Bundles_41.html

For the video card, go for the Leadtek GeForce 2 MX @ £123.32
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Graphics_Cards_9.html

That equates to £341.29 for the whole lot. There is one important point to make however, and that is to ensure that you get a 300watt+ powers supply unit (PSU) so that the Duron OR Athlon will have enough power to work with.

If you do have to get a PSU, and your budget really is £350 max, then you may have to choose a slightly cheaper video card instead.