What To Buy Now?

Hey guys, I think its time for an upgrade. My rig currently has the following.

My Pride And Joy
Hp Pavilion mx75 17inch crt monitor =/ lol.
DFI LanpartyUT NF4 Ultra-D (BIOS 704-2BTA)
AMD Athlon 64 3000 Venice (312x9 at 1.6vcore)
2x512 Patriot Signature Ram (200.16mhz)
Saphire X1800XT 256mb (730core/890mem)
WD 80gig 7200rpm HD
NEC Black DVD+/-RW
Antec SmartPower 2.0 500watt
Antec Lanboy Case
*TEMPS 35c idle, 55c load*


I was thinking about grabbing a new cpu, and psu and even possibly 2 gigs of ram, but i dont even know if its worth it, if i do something like that, i might as well upgrade to conroe right?

Is there really any smart upgrade choice here *besides psu*.

My budget isnt really a concern but i dont want to buy a full new rig yet unless you can get me a conroe rig, cpu/mobo/ram for around 700.

Mainly the only thing i really do is game, surf the web, do some video encoding/decoding, and i do a little bit of video editting/compiling also.



SHORT: Looking for a good upgrade option

How about a 3800+ or an opty 165? Both of these cpus are quite cheap and i think they would be well worth the upgrade.

If you were to buy more than just a few hundred dollars worth, might as well save for a future rig.

Unless you have the extra money and need the extra speed, just upgrade a few parts at a time. Here's some ideas

• Start with cpu, that's an obvious choice. dual-core opty/X2 is an easy choice. Look around and find something in your budget
• Also think about upgrading ram, 2gb sounds like it would be worth it for you.
• How about upgrading your monitor? widescreens are getting cheap now, and they are great for gaming and perfect for audio/video work
• Is 80gb enough? There have been 400gb drives on sale recently for around $100
• Something wrong with the PSU? It should be fine unless you plan to a bunch of hard drives or go SLI
• You should pick up some FPS in your games from a better cpu and ram, less you want to upgrade the vid card to get even more FPS.

X2 3800+ $170
2 GB RAM ~$200
another 80 GB HDD and set up RAID 0 $50
PSU and video card fine as is.

You will have a noticable difference with a dual core, 2 GB RAM and a RAID array for $420

If you do want to go Conroe how about using present PSU, case and drives and adding:
E6600 $315
Gigabyte GA965P-S3 $123
G.Skill PC2 6400 $220 (on sale $55 off at Newegg)

total $658

Sell old Mobo, RAM, CPU and video card and upgrade the vid card.

Heck, I might do that!

is it worth it to upgrade tho, i mean if you think about it, why upgrade to something thats not going to be nearly as fast as conroe, its kinda pointless. I could spend like 500 dollars for a new cpu and ram, or i could spend like 700 and have conroe....hmm

ps: i think im going to buy a 20.1inch benq widescreen either way, or maybe a samsung, dunno yet.

also 80gig is plenty, but i might switch to a hdd with a bigger cache and something faster, such as a raptor or something.

The only partial upgrades that really make sense are CPU or RAM. An x2 CPU if you do lots of CPU-intensive multitasking (ex: multiple ecoding tasks, encode+game etc) RAM if you play stuff like BF2 which gets a noticable boost from 2GB. The only catch is you'd be buying something that is being phased out, for example buying more DDR would have little re-use value going even a few months into the future. At the same time, you could always use the system as a secondary rig in the future.

If you're thinking about doing more then one of the above upgrades the best route would honestly be the core of a new system if you can swing the additional money, reuse say vid card, HD, DVD and replace the other parts. Then switch those out later when you want to.

The real question is, what do you use your computer for? Does it truly seem slow for what you use or is it an upgrade itch/keep up with the jonses type deal. If the latter then putting it off is usually the best answer unless money isn't a concern - and I think that if it wasn't you wouldn't be asking

I agree, the ram is killing you. Buying 2 gigs of DDR is a bad idea. If it wasn't for that, an FX-55 would be a great upgrade. My C2D is great and all, and ppl love to think they got a supercomputer cpu for $2-300 but thats just not the case. An FX-55 OC'd is still going to crank any apps or games you got extremely well for quite a while.

What would really be the deciding factor for me in your case was what you are going to do with your old stuff. Either selling the whole system or partial to finance a new one or upgrade it would defintely make sense in going Conroe. This all depends on if your use to selling stuff online, forums\AT and have good feedback or history or know ppl locally that would buy parts or a whole system, etc.

I'd suggest a nice widescreen lcd or 2GB of RAM. Dells make great monitors and OCZ, Corsair or G.Skill should be able to hook you up with a good pair of sticks.