Upgrading a computer for Gaming and Multimedia

Speedy · #1 June 22nd, 2007, 06:04 AM

I'm considering doing a budget upgrade of my old box for minimal gaming and multimedia purposes. I'm willing to put up to $200 into it. I would like it to be able to hook up to my 27" HD TV and display HD videos properly. I play Age of Empires 3 and Sim City 4 and that's all.

It's current specs are

Windows XP Pro
Athlon XP 2000+ (1.6Ghz)
384 MB RAM
32 MB Nvidia Video card
120GB HDD
60GB HDD

I'm considering adding in an extra 512MB RAM and this video card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102484

Do you think that will be sufficient to do what I need?

oracle128 · #2 July 1st, 2007, 08:59 AM

Upgrading your video card would be a good step, but you should go higher than a 9550. Look at something like a 7600GS (about USD$100) for good performance in those games. Your CPU is also going to be a bottleneck, but with that budget already spent on RAM and graphics, you won't be able to upgrade it to anything useful.

titiung · #3 July 3rd, 2007, 12:35 AM

to play those games without lag, imo, you should

1. Upgrade your video card to the one he mentioned above.
2. RAM should be at least 1GB so u can notice a big difference
3. for the CPU, get some thing like AMD athlon 3000+ (single core) so again, u can notice the difference

I listed above in the order of priority. Cuz imo, video card and RAM > CPU

So i think it will be over $200 if you get all those 3, which will guarantee to maximize your gaming experience for those 2 games (sim city 4 is still gonna laggy when u start building lots of building)

Speedy · #4 July 6th, 2007, 02:12 AM

Well I went ahead with my original plan and AOE3 is working great provided I don't do any major sea battles, Sim City 4 is rather laggy though, but I did the "*** Were you Thinking?" thing and put it on my laptop instead and now it runs great. Thanks for your help!
~Speedy