Current system & next upgrade advice?

[nhnewbie]

I'm looking for a little advice, to see if I'm set up halfway decent or not. First, my usage- I like gaming, but with my dialup connection, online gaming isn't happening. I don't get into LAN parties because I don't know anyone else in my area who games. I'm just an "average" gamer- buy games as they start coming down in price, instead of running out for the newest, greatest stuff. I'm into combat- Call of Duty, hopefully Band of Brothers as soon as I have a few more $$ to spend, stuff like that. My PC is used mostly for internet access, and my personal gaming. I just want something reliable that will play the latest games, even if its not super-fast and top of the line. Money IS a factor.

I just did some upgrades over the past week. My old setup was Athlon 1400 that actually clocked at a little over 1000 (several years old). 1024mb of memory. K7S5A mb. an 80gb and 40gb ATA hard drives. 350 watt power supply. ATI 9600 video.

Here is what I have now:
Ultra Wizard mt case (on its way)
Ultra V 500w power supply
EVGA 250gb nForce3 mb
AMD Sempron 3000+
Seagate SATA 320gb hdd
Ultra 1024 PC3200 DDR400
Reused the ATI 9600
Reused the 40gb & 80gb Maxtor drives

I guess I really would like to know 2 things- where does my system rank for my uses? And once I get access to DSL so I can game online, what would be the next upgrade(s) I should make?

Jim

[saphalline]

If you don't play the latest & greatest games, then your new system is just fine for your purposes. Being slightly behind the curve isn't a bad thing - it saves you money. And with gaming requirements being so intensive lately, it's getting more and more difficult to keep up with the Jones', so to speak. However, it's too bad that you could only afford 2-year-old hardware. That will not bode well in a year or so when PC gaming moves heavily over to the Vista side of things.

To answer your second question, you should definitely upgrade your vid card next! A Radeon 9600 was on the lower end in January of this year. But now? It's just plain obsolete. AGP is going to seriously limit your upgrade potential. You can make one more vid card upgrade - like say a GeForce 7600 GS. After that, you'll either have to suffer with AGP or upgrade your mobo again. AGP is already dead in terms of an upgrade path. PCIe has been out too long, and no new AGP vid cards are likely to hit the streets again.

[nhnewbie]

Thanks for the reply. I upgraded from 5-year old technology (actually, it wasn't even quite state of the art then), so I'm way ahead of where I was. I shop by specials, and the brand new, top-notch stuff just doesn't go on special, and even if there is a "good buy", its still way out of my price range. I haven't found a game yet that won't run on my system, so I should be fine. I'm reall ybummed that I haven't seen many new, state of the art games like I used to see- stuff that really pushed systems. The vid card I have is several years old, and I bought it back then because I bought a couple "new" high-end games that needed it. I remember the days when things like Quake and Unreal came out, they pushed a machine's graphics. I haven't seen anything like that lately...unless something has come out that we don't get in stores up in my area.

Jim

[saphalline]

I haven't found a game yet that won't run on my systemHahahaa! Really? I got one for ya! It's a single-player-only RPG. You may have heard of it. A little game called Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. That game will make your current Radeon 9600 cry like a baby! That game was barely playable when I had a Radeon 9700 Pro. Try that one on for size!

[nhnewbie]

Thanks, I've never heard of that one. Checking ebay now for a good deal if I can. We don't get much for technology in this part of the country. I'm not worried too much about Vista. If its anything like when XP came out, I'm not the least bit excited. I'll stick to 2K for its reliability. I'll give it time for the pros to play with, and see what others think in a year or so.

Jim