Would a decent card make it run newest games?

First of all, my specs:

-Asrock P4VM900 Motherboard FSB 800

One of those rare boards that unite the old ways (s.478 ) with the new ones (PCI-E x16)

-Pentium 4 3.0GHz hyperthreaded

Prescott core, runs at about 46C with 2700RPM stock cooler at idle

1280MB RAM (1GB+256MB DDR400)

-Gainward bliss 7200GS PCX 128MB 450MHz core 600MHz memory clocked to 500 and 750

Works little better than that integrated one lol

So, here's the thing

If I buy, let's say 8800 gts and stick it in my rig, what would I get?

would I be able to play Crysis or COD 4 at higher settings and get decent framerate, or am I being bottlenecked by my FSB, the older DDR400, or something?

You'd want to get some extra ram as well, I'd ditch the 256 stick and get a 1gig stick; which you should be able to run in dual-channel.

You'd want to get some extra ram as well, I'd get a 1gig stick; which you should be able to run in dual-channel.

You'll get some more framerate stability in your games with the extra ram, plus you'll get the everyday benefits of it (running more programs at once, and less swapping out to disk).

You gatta make sure that your motherboard supports the VGA and enables you to benefit ftrom it's performance

It's known that Computer performance follows the slowest hardware

8800 GTX [which i have] has A DDR3 ram which will mean nothing if your motherboard don't fully use it

Second issue will be your power supply 8800 GTX requires a massive source of power [it requires 2 separate power cable from power supply] usually comes when your power supply is over 600 watts

2 GB of Rams should be enough however 3 GB is better safe then sorry 8800 GTX is great but AA may create some problem if your Ram is low [XP uses less Ram then Vista]

The board has no dual channel support. So, no matter what card I take i wouldn't be able tu raise it at least to medium? Oh, and about the swapping... I was planing to get 2 more gigs and turning virtual memory off.Crofna

I don't think you can turn Virtual Memory off, I believe it's necessary for Windows to run.

At any rate, the 8800GTS seems a bit too poweful. I'd cut back to the 9600GT, that seems much more appropriate for your rig, as long as your power supply can handle it.