I agree with you on that one. I think he might see SOME improvement, but not much.

To you an idea, I just upgraded my entire system. I went from:
550MHz Intel -> Athlon 2100+
256MB RAM -> 512
and I slapped in a Western Digital 80GB Special Edition drive**.
My performance on GTA3 is still pretty sub-par. I can't run higher than 800x600 with acceptable framerates, so I mainly run the game in 640x480, which isn't all that pretty.

My problem? I have an ATI AIW Radeon (the first one). It's a 32MB card, and the biggest bottleneck in my system.

So yes, upgrade the card first.

And yes, I would also recommend the 4.1 ProMedia's. They are excellent speakers.

**I was so pissed that I didn't know about CompUSA's recent deal. They had 120GB Western Digital SE drives (w/ 8MB buffer) for $50! I would have set up my RAID with a couple of those. damn.