Computer Upgrade Help

[nonposter]

Hi. Right now, I have a K7S5A motherboard, 512MB ram, Duron 1.0GHz CPU, Maxtor 5400rpm 40GB hard drive.

I am considering upgrading to an Athlon XP 1600+ to 1900+ CPU and a new hard drive. I want more speed in the hard drive.

Here are my thoughts so far:

1. Get special edition WD drive with 8MB cache, 80GB. ($110)
2. Get Barracuda ATA V, 60GB (30GB per platter). (? $110)
3. Get new motherboard (MS-6347) with U160 onboard and get something like a Fujitsu man3184mp (10000RPM, 18.x GB, 8MB cache). ($45 for MB, $125 for drive)


I'm not looking to spend a ton of money. Choice #1 seems good. Will the Barracuda ATA V be much faster than the WD, due to higher per-platter density? The 10000 RPM scsi drive should be noticably faster than the IDE drives, right? If I get that motherboard, though, I'm limited in my CPU upgrading, since it only supports 200MHz FSB.

This will be for my main computer. I mostly run Linux, and sometimes Win2K for games. Websurfing, compiling (Gentoo Linux), a little photo editing, word processing, etc.

Which path should I choose?

 

[MrDudeMan]

correct me if im wrong but the special edition drivers have 40gb per platter, making it more dense than the 30gb per platter

 

[WTT0001]

#1, A little reading here.

 

[nonposter]

 

[nonposter]

Originally posted by: MrDudeMan
correct me if im wrong but the special edition drivers have 40gb per platter, making it more dense than the 30gb per platter

Oh yeah. I meant 60gb per platter for the Barracuda ATA V.