I want to play Oblivion with smoother fps. Which one should I upgrade first? Cpu or video card?
396174
Video Card is the first thing you want to upgrade.
1073775
The AMD Athlon is better for gaming..and the Intel Pentium is better for multi-tasking stuff..so its up to you..go by what you plan to do the most with your computer
714480
Definitely, go for the gold GeForce 7950 GX2 would work great on your pc, even some of the newer ATI cards like the X1900 Crossfire edition.  And no you don't have to upgrade your RAM, you have 2GBs already which is great, but you know if you have the money to blow, why the hell not max it out!!  Oh yeah, these components will mean more heat, so you might want to think about a few memory heatsinks and maybe upgrade your cooling components.
957699
Run dxdiag. It should tell you about the RAM, CPU, OS(and build), and the DirectX version.
419664
Definitely go for a strong Pentium 4....however, in my opinion, AMD processors are better for gaming. Also, it's not just the CPU you have to worry about. Flight Simulator runs best with at least 1 GB of RAM. That's what I use, and it runs fine.\n\n\nHope this helps!!!
234913
I would recommend an AMD processor.
924080
If you can run Oblivion, I'm guessing you have an ATi Mobility Radeon X300?\n\nIts not exactly a high end card, but some high end games might work on low settings, others might crash.\n\nSee if you can find any patches for the games with the problems.
1046619
I'd get a high-end Alienware computer, if I could afford it. Whatever you get, I'd make sure it has a slot for an AGP or PCI Express card. It may come with an onboard graphics card, but if it does, I'd have a good one installed right away. Your computer is only as fast as your slowest component.
477749
Like conradj213 said, you need to at least a 1.5 GHz processor to play good games, you also need upgrade your ram memory to one that at least has at least 256 MB you don't have to get rid of your old card you can buy another 128 MB and install it with out replacing your old car and you'll have a 256 MB RAM, harddrive is ok but you can upgrade it as well, 128 Mb video card, well it depends on what card you have, some are not compatible with some games, i remember seeing a 250 MB video card on amazon.com, the reviews said it was an awsome card for a low price.\n\nhttp://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=br_ss_hs/104-4431882-2600711?search-alias=aps&keywords=video%20card
368141
Upgrade your graphic card. Get one which has atleast 128mb vram.
547851
I would say the Pentium 3 would be better. But for games I wouldn't really try to play much at all with either of those CPU's.
1104095
you'll need to buy a video card, right now you have on-board graphics...  go with a ATI or N-VIDIA card
695167
Get a 64/128 graphics card. Have enough empty space in C drive. If you can have around 1GB of page file and still enough C drive space. Almost all your games would run fine.
972542
Well that ATI cards gpu and memory doesn't make it ideal for anything but maybe word processing and some office applications (this is the Pro version of the 1600 series guys, not the performance version).  Just by a small unwritten rule, ATI cards usually work better with Intel boards and nVidia works better with AMD.  I would go with the nVidia card though.  Make sure your power supply will handle the new card though. (I believe it takes at least a 400 watt PSU)  ComputerPowerUser mag did a nice little article on sub $200 cards.  Check them out, you'll probably find a better one.
737400
If you're looking for REAL performance for MODERN games both will be severely disappointing. If you want to look for a card for modern games (Like Call of Duty 2, Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion, Microsoft Flight Simulator X, Far Cry, Doom 3, F.E.A.R., ect) get something like:\nATI X800 or X850 series...\nATI X1800 or X1900 series...\nnVidia 7600 series...\nnVidia 7800 series...\nnVidia 7900 series...\nnVidia 8800 series.
711758
the X1900 is among the fastest video cards around.\nmost games do have other limitations (as well), beside graphic speed (hard disk, RAM (2GB?) vs. SWAP, CPU(s))\ne.g. if you have only 1GB of RAM, your games will be slowed down by the system SWAPping (HD instead of RAM).\neven with 2GB of RAM, the CPUs will be fully busy with the action.\napart from some extra heat (heating?) you won't get much out of overclocking your x1900;
587115
AMD and Intel are two different architectures.  You will see a significant performance boost in basically all aspects of your PC usage.  However - every system is different and there is no exact percentage that can be given.  It's all system specific.  Even benchmarks will not accurately tell you.