Advice on upgrading.

[Spamdicoot]

Hey, whats up, new member and such, but could do with some advice on upgrading. I have a budget of £220 and intend on upgrading my Graphics card, RAM, and get a regular DVD drive.

Current specs

1.4ghz Athlon
256DDR PC 266
Geforce 2 Pro MX 64mb (The big ass sucky piece of card that it is...)


Everything else does not really need upgrading, doing the MB and CPU at christmas time, but i could do with a little help on graphics card...
Budget for my graphics card is...not much, but enough for an upgrade i suppose...£140 - £150 maximum...looking for it to last me a few years as the Geforce is showing its age, and i pretty much need some more DDR crammed in here...but i have that covered..

Advise away yo'

Graphics card - £150 max...

[easy]

If your going to spend anything upto £150 on a graphics card, u'll find that the rest of the system will bottle neck, with £150 you could strech to a 9800 which is top quality! why not try modding your case and supping that bad boy up(overclocking it!) Would get you more bang for yer buck!

[Spamdicoot]

Thanks mate, just found a Radeon 9600XT retail lite 256DDR.....£121...probably gonna go for that and stick in another 512DDr...

[easy]

Same graphics card as me I do reccomend overclocking tho, u would notice the difference. It does it have its up's and downs tho. ur choice....

[Spamdicoot]

Perhaps you could tell me a few of those ups and downs?

I believe my mother board can go up to 1.8ghz, and overclocking would be good, i kinda dont wanna blow it up though, would suck majorly, would not be able to afford a new one, i figure i can get some smart ass to do it for me.

Its an athlon 1.4....what you think i could overclock it up to and at what £££ cost and performance cost?

[easy]

Here's a Link, it's 2am so a link will just have to do

[Leeum]

Yeah 9600 or if you're planning on going GeForce FX you want above the 5200, has poor difficulty forming lines and is an overall weak card. Maybe a 5600 Ultra or a 5700.