What upgrades are available to me?

[salty mud]

I feel it's time to upgrade my computer. It's pretty old so I know I'm running out of options and soon I'm going to have to buy a new one, but I think that I can at least try and get some more life out of the one I have now. Here's my specs:

Spoiler :

OS: Microsoft Windows XP (*scoff, still using XP)
Intel Pentium R 4 CPU 3.20Ghz, (2CPU)
2944MB RAM
NVIDEA Geforce 8800GT 512MB

I'm upgrading mainly to play some modern games decently. I can play some moderately demanding games pretty well on this system (Napoleon: Total War, Victoria 2 etc.) but playing the Shogun 2 demo made me realise it's past its sell by date.

What shall I upgrade, and with what?

 

[salty mud]

Thinking of this card - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/189741

Would this work on my system, and is it worth the money?

 

[tokala]

Do you have a Pentium 4 HT or a Pentium D? With either even the 8800 would be in most games CPU limited, and a P4HT would indeed be way past its "best before" date
Not much sense getting an even faster card, unless you upgrade the CPU, too. With a bit of luck your mainboard accepts a Core 2 Duo/Quad, what's your model?
If that's possible, a new CPU would make much more sense than a new video card.
Even if it's not, you might consider going for a new mainboard+CPU. If you have DDR2 memory, you could get an AMD Triple- or Quad-core + board for £100-120.

 

[Zelig]

Unless you're playing games at 2560x1600, it's very likely not worth the upgrade.

I've got a similar setup, a bit faster on both cpu and gpu (athlon x2 2.8GHz, 8800 GTS G92), and am at the point where at 1920x1200, there's no real point in me upgrading the video card.

 

[illram]

Video card compatibility is dependent on your motherboard. What type of PCI socket is it? Just be careful if you have a PCI-E 1.0 motherboard and a PCI-E 2.1 card. I remember reading those might run into problems. Although generally if you have a PCI-E x16 slot you should be fine with any PCI-E 1 or 2 card, but you just won't get the full use out of more powerful cards. So no reason to spend big bucks on anything fancy if you have an older mobo that can't handle it. (And an older CPU that may bottleneck you.)

 

[Genocidicbunny]

PCIe 2 and PCIe 1 are backwards compatible. They use the same physical form factor, but the PCIe 2 card will just function at PCIe 1 speeds.