$300 Upgrade, Advice please

As some of you know Quake IV will be coming out in 10/11/2005 and I would like to be able to run the game smoothly. I just tried to play starship trooper demo and my comp is way too slow, I only get 10 FPS

I currently have AMD athlon xp 1800+ (oc to 2000MHZ @ 2-2-2-6 512MB)
GeForce TI-4200
Epox 8rda+

What would be the best upgrade for me to get better framerate, or at least decent framrate and not lag. I only have $300 to spend atm. I came up with the solution of either:

A) Amd athlon 64 3000+ with new mobo $150 CPU + $120 Mobo
B) GeForce 6800 Ultra for $299 or Radeon x850 $299
C) GeForce 6800 non ultra $149 + 512MB Ram Corsair PC3200C2 $95
D) Open to your suggestion.

hmm.. id get a 6800LE for $125 and if you can unlock the 8 pipes to giveya 16 and OC it, youd have the power of a stock 6800U
deffintely upgrade that Vcard tho..
you've got plenty of ram and that cpu should be ok.. the it wouldnt hurt to upgrade
id get a 3200+cpu and the 6800 for a total of $300

keep saving and upgrade your whole pc .... save another $300

i know you got some cash but if you wait you will be happier... sell what you got and take the plunge... if you get a video card now you may need/want pci-express in near future...

if you absolutely cant wait then i would say another video card

d94 said:

hmm.. id get a 6800LE for $125 and if you can unlock the 8 pipes to giveya 16 and OC it, youd have the power of a stock 6800U
deffintely upgrade that Vcard tho..
you've got plenty of ram and that cpu should be ok.. the it wouldnt hurt to upgrade
id get a 3200+cpu and the 6800 for a total of $300

Click to expand...

I just went to newegg and checked out the card... it is out of stock Is there any other place that carry this card (that can be unlocked) ? I see that monarch don't even carry it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150102

oc as much as you can .. will do a great job !!