What should I upgrade?

My System:

Abit NF7-S v2 motherboard
AMD Athlon XP 2500+, stock
Kingston 512MB PC3200
Asus GeForce4 Ti4200
SB Live! Soundcard
Couple o' IDE Maxtor drives (120GB total)
Some optical drives

Buget: $250

I don't want to hear my hard disk grind like a lawn mower anymore while maxmizing Firefox, or while loading a map in UT2004, or while processing audio. RAID 0 is out of the question, please don't suggest that.

Secondly, I cannot enjoy a game when it is running at 20fps.

I might be able to afford to fix one of these problems. The usual suspects include the GeForce4, one of the hard disks, or the RAM.

The RAM is a simple upgrade, as is the hard disk. But is it worth dropping money on a new AGP video card with PCI express moving on in? I don't want to blow $200 on a 6600GT and then find out later that the card can't be carried over to a new system a year or two down the road. Unfortunately, if I opt for a PCI-X card, that means the motherboard will need to be replaced, and in turn, the processor as well.

Influence me.

with that price, you can get a decent video card and another stick of ram. Just random advice from the noob.

I'd say get a new hard drive, as they are pretty cheap, and would get rid of that noise problem, and perhaps some of the performance problem.

I'd also say you could get a new video card (if you game that is), since your card seems to be pretty old.


I'll also add there are now is a s939 (Athlon64) motherboard that have BOTH, AGP, and PCI-E, which target people just like you, who want to upgrade but not lose cards they spent good money on, but then who can buy a PCI-E board later. I believe ASrock makes them. Here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157081

The ULi chipset that that board uses is very good I'll also add, you can find info/discussion on it here: http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=411749

I say go for the RAM. I'm going to go against the norm and recommend buying a single 1GB stick. You don't want to be like everyone that bought 2x256 when the Bartons came out and next thing you know you're re-upgrading memory. Buying a single 1GB stick will give you 1.5GB which is a LOT of memory, and when you go to a new platform, you can bring over the old memory and not have to worry about running out of banks.

As far as the hard drive goes, go to Silentpcreview.com and search for 'silence suspend' they have an article on how to quiet a hard drive for cheap. I wouldn't recommend upgrading those hard drives unless you were going to Raptors, you won't see very much of an increase in performance at all, especially for such a large portion of your budget.

Thank you all three, you've given me something nice to chew on.

ThePerfectCore said:

Thank you all three, you've given me something nice to chew on.

Click to expand...

Anytime Goodluck w/ the upgrades once it comes time.

tom10167 said:

I say go for the RAM. I'm going to go against the norm and recommend buying a single 1GB stick. You don't want to be like everyone that bought 2x256 when the Bartons came out and next thing you know you're re-upgrading memory. Buying a single 1GB stick will give you 1.5GB which is a LOT of memory, and when you go to a new platform, you can bring over the old memory and not have to worry about running out of banks.

As far as the hard drive goes, go to Silentpcreview.com and search for 'silence suspend' they have an article on how to quiet a hard drive for cheap. I wouldn't recommend upgrading those hard drives unless you were going to Raptors, you won't see very much of an increase in performance at all, especially for such a large portion of your budget.

Click to expand...

That's a great suggestion Tom, I can see the logic in that, because if he wants to upgrade to 2GB, he could just slap a second 1GB stick into there, but then again, 1.5GB is excellent by itself.

That would work very nicely.

What I'd do:

- Already mentioned, but upgrade to the ASRock motherboard and keep the 4200 - that should be enough for UT2004 especially with 1GB of RAM (Read Below). $68
- Get a new processor, maybe a 3200+. $172
- Get a GB stick of RAM, or another cheap stick of the 512MB you already have. $40-$80

Prices generalized from Newegg.

jcw122 said:

Anytime Goodluck w/ the upgrades once it comes time.



That's a great suggestion Tom, I can see the logic in that, because if he wants to upgrade to 2GB, he could just slap a second 1GB stick into there, but then again, 1.5GB is excellent by itself.

That would work very nicely.

Click to expand...

What I'm thinking is gaming on Vista might like 3GB, and while by then this system won't be much of a contender, it'd be nice to know you don't have to buy new RAM.

I don't see DDR2 jumping too quickly.

upgrading the CPU won't do crap, he needs a new video card!

you can get a 512 stick of PC3200 and a 6800GT for 250 bucks, DO IT.............DO IT............DO IT,