update/upgrade

Hey all, how you guys doin today?

For an update, about a week ago i told you i was going to be getting a new mobo from an rma, well refund, from newegg because my bios chip blew on me lol. Either way, i get the board monday, i will let ya all know how it is.

From June 7th to July 7th i will be out in Cali. My grandparents always buy me my birthday gift earlie. My b-day isnt tell sept. lol. Anyways, i know that they will give me around 200 bucks, my question is what should i upgrade? I am a gamer, and play / will play soon extremely heavy games, ie, doom 3.

Here are my system specs.

Nf7-s Motherboard
Amd Athlon 2500+ Mobile Cpu
SLK 900A Heatsink
Smart Fan II
Ati Radeon 9800Pro Graphics Card
1Gig of Mushkin pc3500 ram (2x 512)
Lanboy case-with stock psu
cd rw drive
13gig wd hdd

Im thinking i should get 2 raptors and put them on raid 0, but i dont know to much about raid, and from what i know it may not help me out that much.

Well, thanks for your time, please tell me what you think would be the best upgrade choice for me for 200.00.

thanks

hmm, 13 gig HDD is insanely small...

but unless you're actually close to using it all up, I wouldn't upgrade anything and I'd sit on the $200.00 until something that you can actually use comes up. Right now it seems that you're only looking at very minor, and possibly unnoticeable, improvements.

a couple of RAIDed raptors is about all that comp needs at the moment.
or maybe a DVD drive.
everything else looks pretty sweet.

TehGoober said:

hmm, 13 gig HDD is insanely small...

but unless you're actually close to using it all up, I wouldn't upgrade anything and I'd sit on the $200.00 until something that you can actually use comes up. Right now it seems that you're only looking at very minor, and possibly unnoticeable, improvements.

Click to expand...

What he said.

You already have a nice rig. I would save it up and spend the 200 some other time. The 13 gig is kinda small. But if you are not using it all up I would not bother with upgrading.

For 200 you can get subzero temps on your CPU.

Here is how you can do that:
Dtek TC4: 25 dollars
Danner Mag 3: 40
1/2inch tubing from home depot: 5
Cooler/plastic tub: free to 20
Window AC unit: depends, could get one cheap off ebay
Insulation: 10
Antifreeze: 10? maybe you have some?
Windsheild washer fluid: .99 maybe you have some?
tap water: Priceless

Total: $101 dollars without AC unit. You could probably get one for 50 bucks or so, just take it apart, and get the evaporator in the water, and you got yourself some subzero temps on your CPU.

Cheers!
-0cer


And maybe with the remaining money left over you could get like a 40gb harddrive for really cheap after MIR at oficedepot. I got my maxtor 7200RPM, ata133, single platter, silent bearing (it is really silent!) 40gb hard drive for 19.99 after MIR.

ok, thanks for all the comments. Only problem is, its not birthday cash i would be getting, its a birthday present or presents. I cant ask for cash from my gparents while im out there in cali, kinda rude imo. Either way, the subzero temps sounds pretty sweet. I will see how my system runs on monday and what the temps are. thanks again.