Memory or video card upgrade

[newz]

I am looking for some advise about upgrading a 1.9 meg Pentium 4 desktop computer. It is actually my nephews 3 year old dell. He likes video games and would like to get better perfomance. He only has 256 meg of memory and a gforce 2 card. He plays world of warcraft and other games like that. Considering the cpu is no long top drawer....which upgrade would help the most.... more memory (how much?) or a newer video card? Which card? I am worried a new video card might be too much for the puny 250 watt power supplies that dell typically uses.

Will the older cpu negate any major improvements.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Please move this over to the Video forum, plenty of people will be happy to answer your question
Welcome to AT!

 

[newz]

Sorry.....I thought a video forum wouldn't want to hear about memory.

 

[trungthiendo]

memory, 256 is not enough for anything now adays.

the system is pretty dated, idon't know how much power WOC needs but i would try another stick of 256, should help performance somewhat.

 

[roguerower]

Both! Corsair XMS Extra Low Latency and a ATI X800XT Platinum Edition

Should be able to play games with.

 

[ShellGuy]

roguerower ur nutz he is tryin to choose not how much can he blow on 2 items when you can build a newer sys for the price of those parts.



Will G.

PS you could get 256mb and a bit better card and win both ways...

 

[roguerower]

Just seeing if he was crazy enough to do it. I would purchase another 256 stick and then look at maybe a ATI 9600, if you can afford it. If not search ATOT for a used vid card. I've seen some crazy prices. I bought my X800 Pro for $320 off of here, $80 below MSRP.

 

[geecee]

Do both unless you're really tight on money. Go up to at least 512MB ($25-30 for 256MB). Upgrade to at least a GF4 Ti4200 (can find used for less than $70). Or maybe a 5700LE ($75 new at newegg). I have a buddy who sometimes plays WoW on two different machines and his lower end box is a P4 2Ghz with a Ti4200 (not sure of the memory (512MB or 1GB). That's not too far off your nephew's system. Does your nephew's Dell even have an AGP slot? If not, there's a $89 5700LE PCI card which is about the best you can do in PCI these days (unless you can find a PCI Radeon 8500/9100 used).

 

[newz]

Once again some great suggestions. I agree with ShellGuy that we shouldn't sink too much money in this aging computer. Within a year he will probably buy a new system. The dell box does have an agp slot so I will look at an ati 9600 or ti4200. Last night we ordered a stick of memory from crucial. I am sure that alone will make a modest improvement.

 

[crabbyman]

On windows...its makes a nice difference!