First off I agree, Tom's Hardware is a super site!

Secondly a few other things I would like to pass along. Being in IT and having friends come to me for advice, I wish I had a dollar for everyone that I kept from buying a new computer by getting them to do a few simple and relatively inexpensive steps

.My Guide on Not Buying a New Computer
Before you spend any money at all:

1) Remove all unnecessary programs, especially downloaded utilities and most especially any kind of registry cleaning programs. The less you f**k around with the registry the better.

2) Go through and turn off all the auto updating and checking programs. Guess what? QuickTime does not need to check for updates every five minutes. Also beware of hitchhikers. Almost everything you download today has a hidden check box that if you ignore you become the proud owner of the Goggle Toolbar, or another piece of useless background noise.

3) If there is a teenager living within 50 miles, go through and remove the 112 different instant messenger programs that are running constantly in the background. I have seen this alone bring a decent computer to its knees.

4) When you think you have removed all the performance robbing crap, then hit control, alt, delete and start Task Manager. Close down every other program and wait a few minutes, then click on performance. Your CPU Usage should be under 10%. If your computer is working very hard when you don't have anything running then something is running you don't know about and probably should. To find out, click on applications and see what's running. If nothing then you have to go to processes and that's pretty tricky because there will be a lot of things running and they will be hard to indentify. Don't just go through willy nilly cutting them off. If you see one in particular that you don't know and which is using a lot of CPU and Memory, Google the name and if it's anything nefarious you will probably find out.

5) Make sure you have a minimum of 25% - 33% of your main disk drive free. If not ,you need to get some stuff off there. Run disk cleanup and archive old files to CDs.

Odds are that you already won't recognize your old computer it will be running so much better but if you want to invest some money and get better yet:

1) Max out your RAM. Stuff your computer with ram like a Xmas Turkey. Ram is far and away the cheapest way to improve performance. Watch for sales. RAM is almost a Cracker Jack prize these days.

2) Get a better video card, as big as you can comfortably afford. The amount of onboard dedicated video RAM is what's important. Don't be swayed by "available RAM" or shared RAM which means that every time you are doing anything graphically intensive you are stealing from your system RAM. The less you do this the better. Tom's Hardware always has up to date video card information often tested on the very game you want to play.

Read here if you want a rough idea of where your card stands in comparison to the newer cards. You can also check for their regular best value cards of the month editorial in this sectio.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-cards,1805-6.html

3) Watch for sales and treat yourself to a bigger and better video display. Once again read reviews. Check things like dot pitch, total resolution and look carefully at color and color depth. All monitors are not created equal. Although hidden behind various trade names, some monitors, and notebooks are much brighter than others often just because they have more bulbs to backlight the LCD panel. Beyond the brightness and contrast numbers, take along a good quality image that you are familiar with on a jump drive so that you can judge the color for yourself.

Hope this helps.

Edit: The 6800 comes with 12 pixel pipelines whilst the GT came with 16. Also the card was clocked at 325mhz instead of 350. Also the memory clock was about 300mhz slower. Its about 20-30% slower by my rough estimate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Pentium_D_microprocessors#.22Presler.22_.28dual_core.2C_65_nm.29

Yep pentium D is dual Core. The question is how fast?

Minimum System Requirements:
Operating System:
Windows XP or Vista
Processor:
2.4+GHZ Intel or 2.0+GHZ AMD
Memory:
1 Gigabyte Ram (XP)
2 Gigabyte Ram (Vista)
Video Card:
NVIDIA GeForce 6 series(6800GT or better)
ATI 1300XT or better (X1550, X1600 Pro and HD2400 are below minimum system requirements)
Hard Drive Space:
12 Gigabytes
Sound Card:
DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers

Recommended System Requirements:
Operating System:
Windows XP or Vista
Processor:
2.6+GHZ Intel or 2.4+GHZ AMD
Memory:
2 Gigabyte Ram
Video Card:
NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX or higher.
ATI X1800 XL series or higher
Hard Drive Space:
12 Gigabytes
Sound Card:
DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers – 5.1 sound card recommended

I would say that you could run it, but you're scraping the bottom for the minumum graphics requirements. it wouldn't look pretty and it may run with a few slowdowns but you could do it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161209 a radeon 2600pro 512 for $70 with MIR on the AGP bus if you have the older interface.

If you have PCI-Express then you can pick anything you want. (Just incase you want to upgrage.)

First off I agree, Tom's Hardware is a super site!

Secondly a few other things I would like to pass along. Being in IT and having friends come to me for advice, I wish I had a dollar for everyone that I kept from buying a new computer by getting them to do a few simple and relatively inexpensive steps

.My Guide on Not Buying a New Computer
Before you spend any money at all:

1) Remove all unnecessary programs, especially downloaded utilities and most especially any kind of registry cleaning programs. The less you f**k around with the registry the better.

2) Go through and turn off all the auto updating and checking programs. Guess what? QuickTime does not need to check for updates every five minutes. Also beware of hitchhikers. Almost everything you download today has a hidden check box that if you ignore you become the proud owner of the Goggle Toolbar, or another piece of useless background noise.

3) If there is a teenager living within 50 miles, go through and remove the 112 different instant messenger programs that are running constantly in the background. I have seen this alone bring a decent computer to its knees.

4) When you think you have removed all the performance robbing crap, then hit control, alt, delete and start Task Manager. Close down every other program and wait a few minutes, then click on performance. Your CPU Usage should be under 10%. If your computer is working very hard when you don't have anything running then something is running you don't know about and probably should. To find out, click on applications and see what's running. If nothing then you have to go to processes and that's pretty tricky because there will be a lot of things running and they will be hard to indentify. Don't just go through willy nilly cutting them off. If you see one in particular that you don't know and which is using a lot of CPU and Memory, Google the name and if it's anything nefarious you will probably find out.

5) Make sure you have a minimum of 25% - 33% of your main disk drive free. If not ,you need to get some stuff off there. Run disk cleanup and archive old files to CDs.

Odds are that you already won't recognize your old computer it will be running so much better but if you want to invest some money and get better yet:

1) Max out your RAM. Stuff your computer with ram like a Xmas Turkey. Ram is far and away the cheapest way to improve performance. Watch for sales. RAM is almost a Cracker Jack prize these days.

2) Get a better video card, as big as you can comfortably afford. The amount of onboard dedicated video RAM is what's important. Don't be swayed by "available RAM" or shared RAM which means that every time you are doing anything graphically intensive you are stealing from your system RAM. The less you do this the better. Tom's Hardware always has up to date video card information often tested on the very game you want to play.

3) Watch for sales and treat yourself to a bigger and better video display. Once again read reviews. Check things like dot pitch, total resolution and look carefully at color and color depth. All monitors are not created equal. Although hidden behind various trade names, some monitors, and notebooks are much brighter than others often just because they have more bulbs to backlight the LCD panel. Beyond the brightness and contrast numbers, take along a good quality image that you are familiar with on a jump drive so that you can judge the color for yourself.

Hope this helps.