Area 51m 7700 Upgrade Question

Hi guys.

I`m in a dilema about either upgrading my existing laptop or buying a new laptop/desktop completely. I have at the mo:

Area 51 7700 laptop
17" screen
Clevo D900T motherboard
Intel pentium 4 CPU 3.2Ghz
60Gb hardrive 5400rpm
Ge force 6800 256Mb
2Gb Ram 667Mhz
Windows XP

Now I know that the Clevo D900T supports up to the Nvidia7950 card which I priced the other day at a staggering £345 from an outlet in Kent. Yikes!!!!
However I want to know how much of my computer is worth upgrading after I buy a new videocard.
Is it worth spending £345 on the 7950GTX first off. or is the 7900GTX just as good.

Games that i like are TOTAL WAR series and CRYSIS looks good.

And how expensive/easy is it to upgrade the hardrive to say, 150GB 72000rpm? and is it worth it?
And am I correct in saying that XP only support a maximum of 3GB in memory?
If so could you point me in the right direction for all these upgradable parts please.

Obviously overall it would be cheaper to upgrade. But would the 7900GTX or 7950GTX be a good choice of cards?

Sorry for the long post. Advice would be much appreciated.

 

I would try someway to upgrade the cpu, this notebook support desktops cpus, right? If it is possible to upgrade, maybe it would a nice upgrade put a core 2 duo or even a low end pentium dual core. I think that a 7950gtx is a bit overkill with a p4 3.2GHz.

 

I`m open to any suggestion on upgrades.
How much would a core 2 duo cost?

 

In fact Mr Eurocom, give me a rough price on

core 2 duo cpu
7900gtx / 7950gtx card
1Gb memory
and 60Gb hardrive 5400rpm

cheers

 

As Mr. Eurocom noted, you may not be able to upgrade at all. The D900T had a new motherboard revision for support of the Go7800GTX and up cards. If you have a Go6800 then there is a good chance you may be stuck with the Go6800.

In my opinion you are better off putting the money towards a new computer.

 

I already know my motherboard supports the 7900GTX / 7950GTX cards. As I got a free replacement motherboard from Alienware last year (ish). They replaced my old m/b with a new 900T which I checked supported the 7900 cards at the time. well unless i was spun a yarn. I will check for sure when I get home. I am correct in saying there is a sticker on the m/b itself that tells you the version etc?