Mobo anxiety

[mbaybut2]

I bought Return To Wolfenstein yesterday and when the action starts my system crawls, making the game unplayable. I was thinking it was time to upgrade. I have at the moment a BE 6II with a PII 350. Viper 550, 128 meg. As a side issue, if I leave the system overnight I will usually need to reboot, it seems like it gets bunged up. Should I upgrade everything or just the video card. If anybody could recommend a MB combo and video card, memory etc I would be grateful. I am a layman so please easy on the tech stuff.
Thanks,
Mike

 

[brianF]

Depends on what you want to spend, still some life left in your motherboard.

With the latest bios flash it will support up to a 1 gig coppermine processor/ You could probably pickup an 800 or 850 cheap.

video card, definitely you need a new one. gforce2mx 400 or gforce3 ti200, best right now is gforce3 ti500 but there pretty pricey.

With ram dirt cheap you might as well bump that 128meg while your at it.

 

[mbaybut2]

Going to the Abit website it looks like this mb will support a PIII up to 800. Is that a coppermine? How much noticeable difference will I have with the new chip?
Mike

 

[brianF]

don't confuse P3 and celeron. The new celeron's go over 1gig, as far as your motherboard 1 gig would be the top with a 100mhz front side bus.

Anything over 600 in the P3 is coppermine, some 600's are katami, some are coppermine. You need the E version of the chip for your board(coppermine) EB is coppermine 133jhz front side bus, your board doesn't support, B is the old Katami, you don't want one of those.

 

[mbaybut2]

So can I get a PIII 800? Will it make a bit difference from the old system?
Mike

 

[brianF]

Yup just make sure it's an 800 E 100mhz front side bus, can't remember if your mobo is fcpga or slot1, that's the only other thing to consider

big difference between p3800 and p2350