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With AGP x1950s becoming more available, would I be better off spending say £150 on one, or going the whole hog and renewing motherboard, memory, GFX and CPU?
It seems a lot of hassle just to improve the graphics a bit.
On the other hand, would my 3200+ be a bottleneck with a fast card in there?
It depends when you want to do your next 'whole hog' upgrade.
The 3200+ may well limit you to an extent, and if you choose to stay AGP now then you are still going to have to make a large overhaul of your system at your next upgrade.
Personally I'd wait until you're ready to do a full upgrade. You'd undoubtedly see a good improvement, but you've still got a pretty capable card. Unless it's really struggling to do what you wish, I'd just turn down the details a bit and ride it out until you're ready to go the full way.
My current setup does pretty well for what i use it for, it's just the imminence of Crysis has me thinking maybe it's time to upgrade...
Id save the £150 and go the whole hog as buying into things not really supported or used anymore is pointless.
And the 3200+ may well be a bottleneck.
Yeah, you've sort of confirmed what i was thinking anyway, but as it's not something that can be done piecemeal, i've been putting off the transfer to PCI-e for a while now...
I suppose i've got to bite the bullet sometime...
Well hang around, as by the time Crysis is out, there'll be at least the updated cards around, the more mid-range DX10 cards the R600 and maybe even the refreshes that will undoubtedly happen in the Autumn. Even if you don't get one of the fancy new cards, they should force down the prices of the existing cards.
Always just wait until you 'need' to upgrade. :)