[Scuddie]

There are a few, such as many Gigabyte boards, that support PCIe x16 and AGP 8x, but they have their own issues.  Anyhow, for that system you have, the biggest bottleneck would be that POS GeForce MX.  My suggestion of getting a 9600XT will bring your machine as far as it can go.  More ram would be pointless in most cases, a faster CPU would be a waste of time, and a new motherboard would require a replacement of everything, with exception of IDE and PCI devices.  Your choices are to buy a new PC (maybe $700 for a relatively decent setup), or buy a 9600XT for about $100.  Considering the cost, I think the latter is the better choice.

Anyway, to break it down:
Good 430W PSU - $65
Mid-range motherboard - $90
Athlon64 Venice 3200+ - $160
256MB X800 GTO - $170
2GB PC3200 2-3-3-6 - $235

This kind of setup is for upper mid-range machines by today's standards.  Also, the figures are just to get the machine up and running.  No hard drives, periphreals, monitors, etc are included in these figures.  This $700 could easily turn into $1000 for a complete package.  I hope that clears things up.

[ZylonBane]

I'm super bored of PC games and I reckon it's cos I haven't played anything new (probably) since the Doom3/DeusEX2/Thief3 releases

Well there's your problem. Try buying some games that don't suck.

[DaBrain]

Your system has two weak points:

The GF4 MX and the SD-Ram.

While the CPU is fine, the ram is pretty slow. I suppose you can't upgrade your systm with DDR-Ram.

Well a new gfx card would still boost your game performance a lot. I wouldn't spend too much on the system though...

[Dark RevenantX]

Three steps:

1.  Save up $1,500-$2,000 (or the equivilant price for non-US citizens)
2.  Sell your current computer for 1/4 or 1/5 what you paid for it on eBay.
3.  Go on www.newegg.com to look for a new setup.  $2,000 (or the equivilant price for non-US citizens) should be enough to get something at least 2x better than what you got.

[Kosh]

I wouldn't bother getting a Radeon 9600 XT. I have heard that the new games are really pushing that card to its limits. It had a good run though.

[CP5670]

There are a few, such as many Gigabyte boards, that support PCIe x16 and AGP 8x, but they have their own issues. Anyhow, for that system you have, the biggest bottleneck would be that POS GeForce MX. My suggestion of getting a 9600XT will bring your machine as far as it can go. More ram would be pointless in most cases, a faster CPU would be a waste of time, and a new motherboard would require a replacement of everything, with exception of IDE and PCI devices. Your choices are to buy a new PC (maybe $700 for a relatively decent setup), or buy a 9600XT for about $100. Considering the cost, I think the latter is the better choice.

Anyway, to break it down:
Good 430W PSU - $65
Mid-range motherboard - $90
Athlon64 Venice 3200+ - $160
256MB X800 GTO - $170
2GB PC3200 2-3-3-6 - $235

This kind of setup is for upper mid-range machines by today's standards. Also, the figures are just to get the machine up and running. No hard drives, periphreals, monitors, etc are included in these figures. This $700 could easily turn into $1000 for a complete package. I hope that clears things up.

There is no point of having that much memory unless you also have a high end video card for large texture settings in one or two newer games. A 1GB Corsair VS 2.5-3-3 pack can be had for $80 and will provide about the same performance. The video card is where the bulk of the money should be put into; a $320 7800GT is a great overall choice these days. I wish I had grabbed two of those back when you could get them even lower from a few places, around $280.

Does Gigabyte make such boards? The only one I know about is the Asrock Dual-SATA2 board, which is one of the fastest boards at stock speed but is somewhat buggy and a mediocre overclocker. There are also some Biostar and Jetway ones, but those don't have true AGP at all but an extremely slow hacked AGP running off the PCI bus.

Well there's your problem. Try buying some games that don't suck.

They aren't that bad compared to most of the other stuff we get these days. I would take DXIW over things like FEAR or HL2 any day.

[Descenterace]

I wouldn't bother getting a Radeon 9600 XT. I have heard that the new games are really pushing that card to its limits. It had a good run though.

Somewhat of an understatement, I'd say, having tried to play FEAR on an X800XT

[Thor]

I wouldn't bother getting a Radeon 9600 XT. I have heard that the new games are really pushing that card to its limits. It had a good run though.

sigh...its true...my baby is also showing signs of aging.

3ghz P4
MSI Mobo (too lazy to look up what one)
1gig Corsair Twin-X
1 PATA 120gig
2 SATA 160gig
Radeon 9600 XT
Audigy 2 ZS Platinum
single layer sony dvd burner
dvd player
and my baby...a Matrox RT x100 video render card

[Roanoke]

£700 looks to get a decent base so I'm gonna hammer the savings for 6 months and buy a new 'un.

[Grey Wolf]

Your system has two weak points:

The GF4 MX and the SD-Ram.

While the CPU is fine, the ram is pretty slow. I suppose you can't upgrade your systm with DDR-Ram.

Well a new gfx card would still boost your game performance a lot. I wouldn't spend too much on the system though...

As I said, he has a Socket 423, so he couldn't even upgrade to RDRAM, which is a rather horrible concept in and of itself.

Again, wait until you find games you want to play that require an upgrade. It's pointless upgrading if you only play games that would run on your old system.