You’ve already had a lot of good advice here; the only thing I would add is that if you decide not to get more RAM now, I would hold off on the upgrade to Windows XP. XP is nice, no question about it, but it needs more RAM than 98. If you’re used to getting the full benefit of your 256MB already, you’re going to have less of it for your applications when you run them on XP. On the other hand, if you weren’t pushing your RAM capacity that hard before, you probably won’t notice a difference… except that your operating system will hang a lot less than it used to. ;-)
Avoid Windows ME altogether. If you have the resources to run ME comfortably, you might as well run XP.
If efficient use of money is an issue, I’d hang onto the GeForce 3 for now and wait for nVidia’s next iteration to push the prices of existing cards lower.
Oh, and if you’re thinking of a 80MB hard disk, why not keep the 30MB drive and run both in your system? The more, the merrier, I always say.
Note that, as of the KT266A release, the “4-in-1 issues” are a dead matter. XP doesn’t even require the 4-in-1 drivers.
I’ve been running a KT266A/Athlon XP 1800+, mildly overclocked to 1.6GHz (“1900+”), since last November, and have never had a single Via or Athlon-related issue.
And the CGM folks will back up the fact that for quite a while I was of the “go with Intel to insure compatibility” mindset. I have no regrets about going for the Athlon XP instead.
Yeah, the Abit KT7 that housed my Athlon 900 was a major pain and wouldn’t run SMAC without regularly locking my system up–but the KT266A-based EPoX 8KHA+ and Athlon XP 1700+ I replaced it with has been a rock of stability for the last ten months.
I haven’t figured out what you’re skimping on and what would constitute a major purchase…all you need is a RDRAM mobo and replace the 1GHz P3 with a 1.6ish P4 and you’ve just built a new system, complete with RDRAM.
I am gaming on a 1.0 GHz Thunderbird Athlon with 512mb SDRAM and a Radeon 1 (32 mb). I have no problems running anything, including Jedi Knight 2, Hitman 2, MOHAA, and other stuff. You should just upgrade your RAM and forget that Windows XP idea. Windows 98SE is extremely stable (I never have any crashes at all unless I use my crappy TV card) and the drivers are extremely mature/developed/tested/known. Plus you will save the money you’d spend on the XP upgrade and put that money into the RAM upgrade or into some of those bills you want to pay off.
