New computer question

I may be getting a new computer pretty soon and I was wondering what kind of improvement on SL performance I could expect. I currently have a 3 or 4 year old HP. Its a Pentium D, 128mb ATI video card I think, 1GB RAM. I was looking at an HP that has a 2.3 GB AMD duel core, 512mb Nvidia 8500GT, 4 GB RAM.
Right now, SL gives me fits in places that are really crowded. I was in Armidi last night, and Last Call OMG Anyways, is the lag and long rez times I seem to experience most of the time in SL my computer, or SL itself? When I get my new computer, am I going to see a huge difference? Thanks so much for any feedback ::kisses::

Allysa
=^.^=

I think you will notice a difference seeing the old and new specs. The thing I think that is holding back the old computer is the video card and ram(more on the video card side).

you should notice a difference. The extra RAM will help. That video card is a big improvement but if you can swing an upgrade, even to an 8600 series card, that would be even better.

My understanding is that lag is not always a client side issue. The sim itself lags when it's full and the server is struggling with the load, and your connection speed could have a huge effect. I recently spent some time in a hotel and I connected via a slower WiFi connection than my normal Broadband cable connection. Even though the computer I was using was faster in almost all aspects than my home PC, I had terrible lag problems. I just about yanked my hair out in frustration a couple times.

The big improvement will be graphics quality for you.

This bears repeating. The 8500 is the very low end of the 8000 series cards. It does do DX10, but the critics seem to agree that its performance is closer to the older 7600GT cards. The 8600 would be a better choice.