Upgrade, or New Build?

CheBourgeoisNoir

I'm looking to play some of the new releases out there like Modern Warfare 2, Bad Company 2, Borderlands, Diablo III, and I'd like to even give Crysis a crack even if I can't ran it past low settings. MY current desktop is nearing 6(ish?) years old now, and it's getting to the point where the thing chugs running TF2. My Mobo is AGP and not PCI-E, so I'm doubting the upgrade potential of the box, and I don't know if my processor would bottleneck things up, either? Any suggestions?

(Relevant Stuff from IBuyPower)

Cotytech ATX Mid-Tower Case w/420W Power Supply Silver
AMD® Athlon-64 3400+ CPU w/ Hyper Transport Technology
Certified CPU Fan and Heatsink + 2 Extra Case Fan
Asus K8V-SE Deluxe Via-K8T800 Chipset w/5.1 Sound, LAN, IEEE-1394, USB 2.0 8x AGP Motherboard
1024 MB [512MB X2] DDR-400 PC3200 Memory Module Geil or Major Brand
Nvidia GeForce 6800-GT 256MB w/DVI + TV Out 8x AGP Video
200 GB HARD DRIVE Maxtor 200 GB 7200 RPM Ultra ATA-133 8MB Cache Hard Drive
Creative Lab Sound Blaster Audigy-2 ZS 7.1

CheBourgeoisNoir

Note: The reason I'm suggesting the possibility of an upgrade is that, being a broke college kid, the financial situation behind building even a minimalist box is dubious....after buying a copy of Vista and a monitor (running an old CRT that's half dead right now) I know I'm looking at at least $1000?

kaliyama

You're going to need a fairly substantial overhaul because you have an AGP-only motherboard, which means to get a video card upgrade you'll have to get a PCI-E mobo.

I usually am categorically in favor of building things yourself because you get more bang for the buck. But dell/HP are cutting prices to compete in a very gloomy market and you can get a bundled LCD monitor and win 7 cheap. IMO, look at getting what you want out of this:
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/shopping_guide.do?template_type=guide&guide=spring_sale_2010&jumpid=em_r329_hhos_5444&aoid=53787&email=null,
or dell's student discount store,
and then upgrade the video card on your own.

Scosglen

CheBourgeoisNoir wrote: »

Note: The reason I'm suggesting the possibility of an upgrade is that, being a broke college kid, the financial situation behind building even a minimalist box is dubious....after buying a copy of Vista and a monitor (running an old CRT that's half dead right now) I know I'm looking at at least $1000?

Upgrading is out of the question. Your motherboard is too old, and at the point where you're replacing your mobo you are basically rebuilding the system anyway.

You should be able to easily build a machine with a $150-200 monitor budget and come in under $1000.

Depending on how strapped you are for money there are viable builds between $600 and 800 or so that will crush all of those games you listed.

Tomshardware.com forums and other tech sites are great places to ask for help picking out components

Fizban140

You could easily make a budget build for under $600, when I made my computer last year I read a few $400 gaming PC builds. It actually ran most games with medium-high settings.

Esh

Do not get Vista. Get Windows 7.

EggyToast

The long upgrade cycle is what pushed me towards pre-built ultimately, because if you aren't upgrading bits & pieces you end up hitting a point where you need to upgrade your mainboard, which means you need new ram, probably new HDDs, new optical drives, maybe a card reader? Probably a new video card, etc. etc. And yeah, because things don't work on the older mainboards, you end up with an entirely new computer. For me it pushed me into Apple's offerings (since I don't play PC games), but don't worry, I'm not suggesting you get a Dell. Just saying that piecemeal upgrades only really work if you, you know, do them gradually over time. 6 years screams "whole new computer" regardless of the ugprades you've put into it before, though.