Upgrading priorities - which should I do first?

Hello,

I put my system together with the money I had a few months ago, and now I have a fair amount to invest in making it perform a lot better. On my wishlist right now is...

- 2x WD Raptors in RAID 0 (currently have Seagate Barracuda 160GB)
- 6600GT or 6800GT (currently have 5500)
- another 1GB of RAM (currently have 1GB)
- A64 3700+ 754 (currently have A64 2800+)

So what do you think I should shoot for to get more performance quicker? Video card would be nice, but I'm not a huge gamer and I think I can definitely hold off on that for now. I have heard great things about the dual Raptors in a RAID 0 config and how fast that runs. Please give me ideas and suggestions

Thanks

It's really up to you. No one can make a decision for you. If you're not a huge gamer, I'd stay away from the vid cards. On the other hand, if you play games even a little bit, a 6600/6800 will make a big difference from a 5500. 1 gb of ram should be enough unless you do some very memory-intensive tasks, which if you did, you should have already had more ram. 2 raptors in raid 0 are very fast, but many think that its overkill and not worth the cost. Apparantly its just too much for a desktop. I have one raptor and its plenty fast, but it doesn't make a huge difference in performance, especially while performing tasks. It only helps load programs/os and that doesn't happen too often (in relation to everything else you do). So I would get the 3700+. Out of everything you listed, I think that would be the best option. Another choice would be to get just 1 raptor, but thats only 74gb, and you may need more storage.

Thanks very much for your advice!

My Two Cents Worth

Tom
It would help people provide you feedback if we knew the specs your running and what your doing with the computer and what is the goal of the upgrade.
Knowing your not a gamer helps but do you do a lot of vid editing (I guess I am just asking what do you want the upgrade to accomplish).
Good Luck

Personally I would need a pretty compelling reason to go with the raptors, though if you have a lot of cash laying around then it would be a cool little extra boost. I'd go for the processor myself, unless you really need that extra RAM.

i'd get another barracuda and run it in raid 0, and upgrade the vid card, and thats it. Everythign else seems fine, and i'm sure you can o/c your 2800+ to at least near 3700+ speeds

i'd go with processor

Question

Do you have any interest in overclocking??
If you do you can gain a lot of performance but will have to spend your money differently that if you have no interest in overclocking.

As of now I do not have any experience overclocking; I would say for now I will be happy with stock but soon enough (next few months perhaps) I will definitely be interested in getting into OC'ing. So I would like to buy stuff I would be happy with but also can be prepared to OC with.

What will you be using this for? I'd say that you should go for the new cpu definitely. 1gb ram should be enough for almost anything other than video editing. Likewise, I don't see the point of getting 2 raptors and putting them in raid 0 (unless you will be doing editing).

If you are more interested in gaming, definitely go for a new graphics card, maybe an x800xl or something.

I'd say what you got now is probably plenty fast except your video card. Do you do anything with your comp right now that maxes out your 2800+?

My upgarde order would be:
new vid card
CPU
save your money.

The benefits of RAID 0 are very arguable. The drawbacks arn't. I've worked with RAID quite a bit (with both IDE and SCSI, server/workstation/desktop) and it's place is in the server realm using RAID 1 and 5. If you want more info search the storage area and look for numbers, not opinions.

For the RAM...depends on what games you play, you might want to consider moving to 1.5gb if your using up your gig, I personaly don't fill up my gig so I leave it be.

Get the memory, games and applications will run a lot smoother and with more memory your computer will access the hard drive less defeating the purpose of fast harddrives.

As you haven't listed any specific uses, I think the best "all around" upgrade would be the CPU. Video card a close second, going from a 5500 to a 6800 would be a day and night difference. Even if you're only a light gamer, you'll appreciate the difference most likely.

Current memory requirments, 1 gig will hold you well enough for now, especially if you're currently using 2x512. Going to 4x512 isn't planning very well for the future, as it isn't as OC friendly. Unless you do a lot of video editing, or server applications, I wouldn't put too much money into this area right this second.

I'm going to assume you have an AGP system, so you could get a 6600gt AGP, and a single raptor, or perhaps a 6600gt and 1gb of cheaper ram. If you had a little under $400 to spend, you could even get a 6600gt, and 2x IDE 200gb maxtor 16mb drives and sata converters for them. The 16mb maxtors are near raptors in performance and have a heck of a lot more space.

Another option, and one I did a few months ago, is to sell off your current motherboard/processor/video card, and move to a socket 939 setup with a faster pci-express video card(like my X700pro). That is definantly do-able with $300+.