Which is better for game performance

I have a via pe11-L motherboard, 1.3 gb of ram, pentium 4 2.2 ghz processor, gforce4 ti 4200 128 mb video card and 2 ata133 hard drives running at ata 100. What would be a better improvement for games like doom 3 and far cry? a new processor and motherboard? or gforce effect 5700 ultra videocard? please let me know asap

 

a video card is usually a more noticable upgrade as far as gaming is concerned ... i would spend the extra money and go with a radeon9800pro or 5900xt ... or wait a few months for the 6800 to come down in price

 

ok, so which version of 5900 xt? Ultra? Se? Also, how can I make stuff load faster? Just a diff motherboard with ata 133 support or what? Thanks again.

 

I had the exact same video card (TI4200) and a similar processor speed and 1 gig of ram. I upgraded to the 9800 pro and saw little inprovement in UT2004 and Nascar 2003 and was hoping to play doom3 and farcry. Still building my new system here (got a bad mobo) but I really think you'll need a new mobo/processor.

 

Its actually very dependent on the game as to which is better.

 

adry: Can you please explain a little more?

 

Well what i believe he means is. There might be a game that is graphicly intense, think Doom3. Haveing a great graphics card would give you the best boost there. In another case, a game like UT2003. You can still play it with an older card, the eyecandy will not be up all the way but you can still play. However it requires more processor power. Games need differnt things.

Right now you have enough processor power to last for a year. IMO

Your bottle neck right now is your video card. My older system was a little less powerfull then yours is now. It was AMD built too. I was able to play Doom3 but it looked really crappy. I upgraded from a nVidia FX5200 to a FX6800, and the difference was awesome!

I would go for a new graphics card. One of nVidia's, or ATI's newest cards will last you quite a while. Most likly out last your processor.



cooked

 

ok I'm going to buy the 5900 xt now which one? The Ultra, regular or SE??

 

Well said

 

depends how much money ur gonna spend ultras the best choice and regular is 2nd best ; dont settle for se, ever.