Ive noticed that my computer has already gone out of date and was wondering what i need to upgrade. I have a geforce 4 ti 4200, 512 Ram, 2.4 Ghz cpu without HT Technology, 430 Watt power supply, MSI SiS 648 Chipset Max Series mobo, 40 gb harddrive. The only thing i am worried about is a new video card and some more ram, but every now and then i always get the feeling like im going to need a new cpu and mobo. Could somebody help be out and tell me what i should upgrade.

do you have any budget in mind? For a modest budget, Get 1GB RAM (or 768MB depending on how much gaming you do) and a Radeon 9800 or Geforce 6600 will do good. I don't know much about intel CPUs, I use AMD. As long as your fsb is 333 or 400, it should be good enough. older 266 and below FSBs will probably need to get upgraded. Newegg.com has great prices, try there if you do upgrade.

I have noticed that my motherboard has one 8x/4x AGP slot and the geforce 6600 needs a pci express slot. I was wondering if this is a problem. I am hoping that this doesnt mean i need a new motherboard.

IF you want an awesome 8X AGP card for what you would pay for the 9800 platinium go ahead and get the BFG 6800 GT OC it has 16 pipelines not 8 and doesn't cost you $500 so your almost gettin the ULTRA and it's what every card that cost $300-and up should be!

SiS based boards are not great. Investing big bucks in an AGP card on an older system is not a wise move. The Ti4200 was a great card, but it's a bit dated now, there are plenty of excellent gaming cards available in the $100 price range. IMO, spending $300 on 6800 Ultra is a waste of money, especially on this rig. Upgrading your RAM to 1GB would help for gaming & other memory intensive apps, but there'll be little difference in "normal" computing. I agree with gamerman4...for about $150, you could add 512MB RAM & a decent gaming card like a Radeon 9600XT, 9800PRO (check newegg's refurbed section), or for a little more, you could get the Geforce 6600 For the most part, 256MB video RAM is a waste of money...stick with 128MB. And make sure the card you buy does not use 64-bit memory interface (usually not a problem with higher end cards) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102362R Asus A7N8X-X 1800+ @ 8.5 x 200MHz 768MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro

I meant 6800GT Asus A7N8X-X 1800+ @ 8.5 x 200MHz 768MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro

Jam is right. Unless you're expecting to upgrade the whole motherboard, CPU, and fan, a 6800GT is one huge waste of money. A Radeon 9800 Pro continues to improve with faster CPU's up to a 3GHz P4/Athlon XP 3200. Therefore, I don't see any logical reason why you should spend big money on a gfx card when even a Radeon 9800 pro would be waiting on your CPU to feed it. In fact, one could make a good argument you shouldn't even consider a 9800 Pro - perhaps a 9600XT would fit your system better if no CPU upgrades on the same motherboard are going to happen. More RAM would be wise, too. The other thing to consider is sooner or later you're going to face having to replace your mobo, CPU, Fan, and video card at the same time to go PCI-e. If your budget allows for it now, it may not be a bad time to do so now. For roughly $400, you could get an Athlon 64 Venice 3000, Nforce4 Ultra mobo, and an NVidia 6600GT PCI-e gfx card. If your RAM isn't PC3200, tack on $80 for a pair of 512M DDR sticks, and your rig would be smoking fast, and the mobo would accept dual core or FX-57 single core CPU's for a future upgrade path. "Republicans in Congress are moving to ratify a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning, thus ending the Iraqi insurgency."