another 'what to upgrade next' post

[xolinlevh]

hi guys, i know theres already another post liek this...but please :) i need help. my current setup is as follows:

ASUS a7n8x-e Deluxe
amd athalon xp 3000+
ATI 9600 pro
1x 256 pc3200
1x 512 pc2700 (both sticks are cheap no brand crap i got at local store)
sound blaster audigy 2 zs (though the baything dosent work for some reason)
sony 16x DVD-RW
ata 133 HDx2
some old powersupply (il update this post when i figure out what brand)

now my thoughts are as follows:
option 1=full upgrade, top fo teh line ASUS board, a fx57, and a nice SLI/PCI-E (i honestly dont know the diffrence) nvidia card, 1-2 gigs of DDR400, possibly replace with SATA drives.

or option 2=small upgrades, new gfx card, new memory, new power supply, donno if any of these will help with a massive boost in proformance.

all i know is that in the short term i need to replace ATI card with NVIDIA, a game i play (anarchy online) has dumb ass issued with ATI drivers, anything past 5.1 and it crashes the game.

any advice as to what model CPU to get and why, someone told me a venice core is good...but i dono why, keep in mind im on a rather limited budget, few months of saving should give me enough for all this...but dont wanna go totaly crazy with money spending....so ANY advice peopel can give asto what i can do to improve my FPS and ****, btw i get like...20-40 FPS.

[DrunkenPirate]

Looking at your current system, small upgrades will offer small boosts in performance but you only delay the inevitable of having to move to the next generation of 64bit and PCIe.
If you have the money I would definitely go with option 1 but not necessarily top of the line, you can stay within a reasonable budget and still have blistering performance with the latest titles.
Post what kind of budget you are willing to set aside for this upgrade and we can help you with choosing parts, your PSU will need updating too by the sound of it.

[xolinlevh]

yea. only reason i picked the fx57 was, i was originaly planing to spend 300-400ish on a CPU, but looking at a venice core AMD 64, and at the amound i was looking to spend, i woudl get a cpu with the SAME clock speed as the current one i ahve thats like...a year or so old...so i didnt really wanna spend money on a CPU thats close to the same as what i got now, so i figured...il work some over time and get a top of the line CPU

[xolinlevh]

btw, my PSU is a antec...i cant tell what model, il pop open my computer later and find out, its rather recent i think, its got a SATA compatibility sticker on it ;P my case is a bit akward to open to get at the PSU

[djstubbs]

If you're looking at a full PC upgrade, check my sig.

[xolinlevh]

djstubbs u gto AIM/msn/somethign? need to talk to someone about this all :)