Upgrading

[trav1085]

I bought my Dell Dimension 1100 for $500 last January when the operating system didn't rely on a good graphix card. But Vista is being released and and all computer manufacteres are including new great graphics card to compete with others. I'm stuck with an Intel Extreme Graphics 828 with XP.

 

I am wondering if performing a $400-500 dollar upgrades will be worth it for the performance and money.

 

I'm thinking of a New graphix card, Two 512MB RAM Upgrades, and a Pentium D 945 3GHz 950[/url].

 

I bought my Dell as a low-end level entry system but I am not a beginner user. Are these upgrades worth the cost? I am into SketchUp and Bryce (and other 3d graphix and 3d modelling, rendering programs) and play shooting and strategic games like Hitman (all 4 games) and SplinterCell (all 4 games) along with Half-life 1 and 2 with Battlefield and such. I want those cool 3D effects in Vista and OS x86 like 3d userswitching and in vista the ALT-TAB switcher.

 

I was really suprised at only $200 something for a processor like that, but since Core-2-Duos are the craze know and 8-core on their way Pentiums are going to be useless and a waste of space in the next couple of years.

 

PS: I already have 512MB of RAM (2x256MB) and only have two of those ram slots. Actually, I'm already using vista but it's graphics are slow.Core 2 Duos are too pricey (at virtually $1000) for me, don't recommend those. Prices are Canadian!

[MadDoggyca]

well woth the money if you can or have the following allrdy installed or upgraded

 

2gig of ram (at 2x1gig sticks) (stay away from 512mb sticks)

ether AMD 64 or EMT64 (intell with x64) 2ghz (core clock speed)

a 256mb PCI-E or 256 AGP 4x 8x

80Gig HD

 

and a copy of the X64 version......

 

and vista the best I ever seen for winz as its finaly full x64 mainsteamed with drivers ever were out of the box