Comments on personal upgrade path

[filmore crashcart]

Please see my system rig specs below... I'm trying to come up with a upgrade path that will work in the next year in the midst of the confusion of all the new technology coming out.

I play some games (UT2004, BF 1942, Pain killer), do some photo editing and use the computer to compile and burn dvd's from my camcorder. It does get sluggish in the last department. I have my 2.4b processor overclocked slightly to 2.57 on a 142 fsb on a IWill P4HT mb. I have my 9800 np (with infinion(spelling?) ram that doesn't like to be pushed) overclocked to 380/320 which seems to be it's limit. For all intent and purposes, my computer is handling things well now but I'm aware that some of it's components are reaching their limits. For example, my 60 gig maxtor ata 100 drive is starting to fill up. Plus, my 512 megs of 2700 ddr seems to be getting maxed with the newer games.
Here is what I'm thinking I can do to hold me over until all this new hardware settles in and the prices stabilize; I don't want to buy anything new until I see what all this new technology is going to require.

I could buy a 3.06 processor to boost the muscle some (I'm not interested in overclocking and would rather things run at spec) and slap another 512 megs of ddr 2700 to take care of some of the hard drive paging. Do you think this would keep me comfortable for a year while I save up for a whole new component swap of video card, hard drive, motherboard and processor? My power supply, an antec true power 380w seems to be enough I think for the newer stuff. Pricing from New Egg, I could get a retail 3.06 with HT and 512 megs of ddr for around $310. What do you think, a waste of money or a good way to make my system last another year?

 

[azndelite6983]

Tough to say. If you really do that much stuff on your computer you might be replacing certain things sooner than you might think. I would say grab a 2.8C, i think around $170, oc it (can take it easily past 3 GHz on stock cooling), and def add some more RAM.

Does the mobo support 800 fsb and HT? If so, def go with the 2.8C. Otherwise, maybe the 3.06B is better.

 

[filmore crashcart]

thanks for the reply. The mb is a 533 fsb board so I'm only looking at the "b" P4s. I'm basically trying to make this stretch another year because, from what I've read, things should be clear by then on what is the best value for the dollar. I didn't want to start replacing components one at a time to find that they aren't going to hack it with the new technology. All this stuff about PCI Express and everything else is exciting and all but it means that you'll be replacing a lot more than just your processor. I'd like to wait until stuff has been out, tested, and the prices get to a reasonable point.

I'm wondering if a 3.06 and another 512 megs of ram will give me a comfortable year to wait.

 

[biostud]

the 512 Mb extra is most important, buy it and see how it turns out. Then you can go for the faster processor later.

 

[filmore crashcart]

That would be a good first start. I've been wondering if the 3.06 processors will drop anymore in price.

 

[azndelite6983]

As said above, the RAM will give the most notable performance increase. Go for that first.

I myself have a 2.8B and the best thing I ever did was buy performance RAM (1 GB corsair XMS pc 3500) which gave me some incredible oc headroom with awesome timings (2-2-2-7)

The 3.06 might drop a little more with the new amd 939's out, but prob not enough to make a lot of difference.

 

[filmore crashcart]

Okay, I just ordered another 512 megs of Corsair "value" 2700 ddr from New Egg. I couldn't remember what 2700 I had in there and SisSoft told me what it was. Hopefully, the 1 gig of ram will show something. I'm still undecided if going to a 3.06 processor will do much - anyone have any definate comments on that?

 

[Cheetah8799]

I don't think 2.5ghz to 3ghz is all that much of an upgrade. You still have other stuff keeping you back, hard drive, etc. I think your current cpu will last more than another year. Unless if for some reason you think it's not working well enough...

The dvd compiling may be the sore spot, since those games will run fine with your 2.5ghz cpu and 1gb of ram. I know when I shrink dvd's when backing them up on my AMD rig OC'd to 2.4ghz it takes a bit, but that's normal. Burning is slow simply because it takes a long time to burn a dvd at 4x... No way to speed this up unless you have an 8x burner and shell out the bucks for 8x media.


The upgrade path I chose for my rig was to add a Promise PCI raid controller and 2 Seagate 80gb drives in RAID 0 (stripe). That gave me 160gb for my OS, software, games, and super fast hd storage for my DVD shrinking. Game load times improved a little, but for the most part the raid 0 helped with the large files I was working with.

 

[filmore crashcart]

Excellent response.... that will be the area I'll look to next for an upgrade. I tend to overlook the hardrive issue I guess becuase it's a more labor intensive upgrade rather than popping in a new cpu or added memory.