New Video card worth it for 1 Ghz Celeron?

[purecomedy]

My second machine is a Celeron 1 Ghz machine with Voodoo 3 2000 (16 MB RAM) video card. I'm finding on some of the newer games that this machine either won't play games at all or the games will look quite weird (basically unplayable). This computer doesn't get much use except for when friends come over I play LAN Warcraft 3 and games that will play fast enough on the machine.

I'm wondering if I should buy a basic upgrade video card to make the computer more useable and hopefully play games faster.

1. First of all, is the CPU so slow that a new video card wouldn't help as the CPU would soon be the bottleneck instead of the video card.

2. In my main machine I've got a GeForce4 Ti4200, would it make more sense to move this video card to the old machine and purchase a new card for my main machine? Keep in mind I never buy these $500 video cards, I'm not a FPS game player so having the latest and greatest is lost on me. I'm thinking that a really really good video card on the old machine wouldn't make up for the slowness of the CPU so really what I want is just something with more RAM on it and probably the chipsets on NVIDIA cards support new games better than an old 3dfx Voodoo video card does.

Any opinions?

[zooner]

buddy of mine has a 1.3 with 512megs of ram.

he went from a gf3 ti200 to a rdeon9600pro, he was shocked at the improvement. It'll handle any game on the market right now.

[Chris]

Move your card over and buy a a 9800 pro or better for your machine.
up untill Christmas my kid was playin all the latest on 1.3 celly with an ATI9000 pro with 512 ram.

Is it a tulatin Celly? If so, keep it, I have 2 and they are great chips

[purecomedy]

Move your card over and buy a a 9800 pro or better for your machine.
up untill Christmas my kid was playin all the latest on 1.3 celly with an ATI9000 pro with 512 ram.

Is it a tulatin Celly? If so, keep it, I have 2 and they are great chips

I'm bad, I already forget all the old CPU names. This Celeron is a 1 Ghz chip with 100 Mhz bus! That is what makes this so hard, the FSB is slow and I am thinking that this machine could be significantly slower than some of the P4 1.5 Ghz type machines with better FSB, faster RAM etc.

I originally had a 450 Mhz P3 on the motherboard with a maximum clock multiplier of 8X, but with an bios update and use of a slotket you can use the FCPGA info to tell the motherboard to multiply by 10x. I believe they said it was physically possible to put up to a P4 or Celeron (one or the other or both?) on the slotket but for some reason the bios support wasn't there yet.

[ghost]

The better the card you put in the old machine, the more it will relieve the duties of the processor.

I like the advice Chris gave but will add that if you have ATI, stay with ATI and the same goes fro NVidia. I've seen problems when guys switch from one to the other but I don't know if that was really the problem. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Maybe Brent could advise on switching brands and whether or not it's okay to do.

[aagiants]

There was an article at atandtech or some other site which shows that even if u have the high tech vid cards, with a low CPU you are hardly using the video card up to its potential. I would suggest a ti4200 geforce 4

[zooner]

There was an article at atandtech or some other site which shows that even if u have the high tech vid cards, with a low CPU you are hardly using the video card up to its potential. I would suggest a ti4200 geforce 4

I agree, although I would examine the difference in price between a 9600pro/xt vs a ti4200. both of them will give you a nice improvement over the what you're currently running. However, I think the 9600 would be a better deal for ya.

[loop2kil]

im actually thinking both of those cards would be overkill for what that cpu can push....i was thinking maybe finding a Radeon 8500 128mb version or maybe a gf3 and you'd be set. Either one of these would give you a drastic improvement in games without costing to much.

[RoscoPColtrane]

im actually thinking both of those cards would be overkill for what that cpu can push....i was thinking maybe finding a Radeon 8500 128mb version or maybe a gf3 and you'd be set. Either one of these would give you a drastic improvement in games without costing to much.

I was using my 8500 up untill last july so i can vouch that it WILL get the job done, might not be crzy fast of pretty but will work!

[YARDofSTUF]

with a 100mhz bus i wouldnt be spending toomuch on a card

[Chris]

Like i said, move the GeForce4 Ti4200 over to the 1 gig celly and upgrade your main rig.
The one gig celly with a decent card WILL play BFV, DC and a host of other games, and your main rig would benifit from a new card

[loop2kil]

re- reading your post...i missed the part about you already owning the 4200. i would do what chris suggests in that case.

[purecomedy]

Admittedly I have never seen any slowdown with my Ti4200 on my 2.8Ghz machine. I'm more of a strategy game player (Warcraft 3, Command and Conquer) as opposed to a FPS game at crazy resolutions.

I was considering a cheap FX 5200 Geforce card, although usually those FX series cards suck so I wonder if it's a downgrade from my Ti4200. I have a dilemma here, as I say nothing is running slow so the need to upgrade isn't there. I do want to think ahead a little of course. My old machine doesn't get much use, I was literally trying to figure out a way for like $50 to make it useable for gaming with buddies for a couple of hours a week. Maybe Ebay is the answer.

I'm relieved that people are not suggesting a $500 video card. I have heard some people say that CPU speed doesn't matter anymore, only video cards. I've never bought into this and from others' comments I see that I'm not out to lunch.

[loop2kil]

don't do the 5200, try looking around for an 8500 128mb version...they can be had for around 50 bucks now and will blow that 5200 out of the water. I think with that cpu you will be getting about all you can out of an 8500.