new ram and graphics card are gonna get purchased, help me spend my money!

djshowdowndjshowdown London
edited October 2005 in Hardware
my setup is as follows

pentium 4 3.00ghz with HT
1ghz ddr400 ram
80gb hard drive partitioned into 20gb (c drive) and 60gb (d drive)
2 x 120 gb sata hard drives (were running as raid but i split them)
radeon 7000 graphics card
edirol da 2496 sound card with breakout box
nec nd2500a dvd-r/rw
intel D875PBZ motherboard



i want to upgrade the ram to 2gb and i also want a decent graphics card

could anyone possibly give me a few options so i know how much i can expect to have to fork out?

many thanks :thumbsup:

Comments

  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    We'd love to help, but first, please be more specific. You wrote "decent graphics card". To me, decent is the 9500Pro (unlocked to 9700Pro) in my systems 1 and 2. The 16MB PCI card in my no. 3 works perfectly for what I need. What intensity of games to you wish to play? The latest, greatest, most demanding? How long do you wish to keep your computer, or the upgraded video card? You see, what you've asked for could be anywhere from $100 to $700 - simple upgrade to dual (SLI) top-of-line $$$cards?

    OK, your DRAM. I'm assuming you have two 512MB sticks. Am I correct? Do you wish to supplement what you've already got, or do you wish to pull it out and install 2GHz of new sticks?
  • BlackHawkBlackHawk Bible music connoisseur There's no place like 127.0.0.1 Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    I would just go with a better video card, unless you really need that extra gig.
  • djshowdowndjshowdown London
    edited October 2005
    well see the thing is i multi task constantly and use music programs which make mincemeat out of ram

    see for the graphics card i just want to go up to the next level and get something that will last me maybe another year

    and also yes i would want to get 2 x 1gb sticks

    would it be worth leaving my 2 x 512mb sticks in there as well?

    or should i sell them?
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    Does your motherboard have 4 DIMM slots? If it does, the most cost effective way for you to jump to 2GB DRAM would be to merely buy two more sticks of 512 that have the same performance parameters of the sticks currently in your system? Also, are you running your system in dual channel, with hyperthreading enabled? (I sure hope so, as this is a performance increase when multi-tasking.)

    Please go here and download CPU Z. It's a nifty little program that wil tell you all kinds of technical information about your computer's CPU and memory. Please install it and give us a screenshot of "Memory" and "SPD" tabs.
  • djshowdowndjshowdown London
    edited October 2005
    cpu-z_memorytab.jpgcpu-z_spdtab.jpg
    ok? :thumbsup:
  • djshowdowndjshowdown London
    edited October 2005
    oh yeah

    and i was told my mobo does have 4 slots
  • djshowdowndjshowdown London
    edited October 2005
    i dont make a habit of bumping topics but can anyone help me out on the graphics card front?
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited October 2005
    They asked above if you game? If your not a serious gamer just keep your present card. It doesnt need upgraded. My porn and dvd movies etc... looks just as good on my radeon 7000 as my pci-e x600 ATI.

    If you game its differant and you need to maybe tell us what games you play and how important gaming speed is. How often do you game etc... You can pay a ****load of money on a video card that is great for gaming but for everything else you will never see a differance. Better to put the money into a faster MB/CPU

    Tex
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