Under $100 Upgrade, need help

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BlueEcho

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Feb 12, 2007

• Feb 12, 2007

• #1

I want to upgrade my PC to enable better performance in upcoming games and the ones I currently play (Supreme Commander, F.E.A.R., BF2, GW:Nightfall etc) and I can't spend over $100.

With my current rig:
Abit AV8 3rd Eye 939 AGP Mobo
A64 3000+ Winchester 1.8ghz
ATI X850 Pro
1 (2x512) Samsung DDR400 RAM.

What would be a better upgrade? This 144 Opteron (I would OC) :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103600

Or add another 2x512 of Kingston HyperX RAM:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820144114

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Beau

 

G

Gunlance

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Jun 11, 2006

Location

Stoughton, MA

• Feb 12, 2007

• #2

A dual core processor will always be nice. But 1 gb of system memory is rather small for today's games.

I would go for the ram.

Or another option would be to save the money, and build a new rig soon. One with at least a PCI-E gfx card.

 

Moto7451

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Feb 24, 2004

Location

LA, CA

• Feb 13, 2007

• #3

Is your current system overclocked? I'd start there first .

 

OP

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BlueEcho

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Feb 12, 2007

• Feb 13, 2007

• Thread Starter
• #4

Yea ive got my proc running at 2250 mhz stable atm... I heard you can get opty's to 2.6ish on air.. wondering if ill notice the diff with the opty, or if more RAM is the way to go.

 

Moto7451

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Feb 24, 2004

Location

LA, CA

• Feb 13, 2007

• #5

You can also get winchesters up that high. A good opty can get to 3GHz however. I'd stick to maxing out your current chip and then get some ram.

 

shadowdr

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Joined

Jan 10, 2001

• Feb 13, 2007

• #6

If you do get ram then I would suggest you get a gig stick with timings that match the others. Many have had issues running four sticks while others have not. If you do get 2x512 I would get the same exact ram as you allready have.

 

tuskenraider

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Joined

Apr 23, 2002

• Feb 14, 2007

• #7

I'd get more RAM as an extra 1GB with be more helpful than 400mhz or so in CPU clock speed.

 

Drew@PSU

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Joined

May 29, 2006

• Feb 14, 2007

• #8

Definitely the ram. BF2 will load much faster with 2 gigs. And the CPU won't help as much with Supreme Commander ( just got the demo, time to upgrade! ) Ram is a great sub-$100 upgrade, IMO.