Help me spend $200 :D

[RavenGuard]

I've got a gaming rig with a single 500gb hard drive. I haven't really looked into or considered a 10,000 RPM drive, and I'm wondering how much performance I'll get out of it.

I've basically got $200 I'm looking to spend and the most important thing to me is running games better. I don't have a dedicated sound card either, and on top of that I can't really think of anything else I could be missing. Since no games have even touched 50% on my CPU I'm not so worried about the sound card anyways.

Perhaps some RAM? I already have 2gb, and 512 for video, leaving me 1GB of wiggle room if I'm not mistaken.

I was also thinking of picking up a new heat sink for my CPU but the one I want isn't available to me here in Canadia.

 

[tynopik]

it would probably help if you were a wee bit more specific about your current setup (cpu, mb, ram, video card, monitor, hd, etc)

 

[RavenGuard]

Core 2 Quad 6600 @ 2.8 Ghz
2GB DDR2 @ 620mhz
500GB HDD
HD2900XT
620 watt PSU
32-bit Vista

 

[LOUISSSSS]

sell the 2900xt and spend that money + 200 on a new video cards

 

[RavenGuard]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
sell the 2900xt and spend that money + 200 on a new video cards

Will do in the future. There are no cards worth the trade in in my opinion. The HD3870 X2 is the only one with a substantial enough increase in power, but unless I can sell my HD2900XT for $300+ it's not really worth it to me...

Is it even reasonable to think I'd make $300 off of it? In that case I just may do so

 

[jkresh]

it would be almost impossible for you to sell the 2900xt for anything over $200, as a 3870 can be found for close to $200 and it beats the 2900xt in most scenarios. What games are you having an issue with (except for crysis you should be fine and outside of getting a 3870x2 or dual 8800gts 512's you wont see much of an improvement in crysis)? The raptors are nice but aren't that much faster then some of the 750/1tb drives (and wont make much of a difference in games except possibly level load times). Your ddr2 and 620mhz might actually be a bottleneck and if you could get it up to 800 (or at least lower the timings) that might be your best option for a quick improvement (but don't expect more then a few fps from that).

 

[chinaman1472]

Originally posted by: RavenGuard

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
sell the 2900xt and spend that money + 200 on a new video cards

Will do in the future. There are no cards worth the trade in in my opinion. The HD3870 X2 is the only one with a substantial enough increase in power, but unless I can sell my HD2900XT for $300+ it's not really worth it to me...

Is it even reasonable to think I'd make $300 off of it? In that case I just may do so

WTF? He's not telling you to trade the card and pay an extra $20 bucks for a 3870x2.

His advice is to sell the 2900XT for $100-200 and use that extra money to get whatever you want, so you can have $300ish to spend on a new card.

 

[Roguestar]

Order in which you spend money when looking for improved games performance:

Graphics card > CPU > RAM > Hard Drive

If you've got the best there is for the top three, start spending spare cash on a better drive. Right now you'd be better off selling your current card and buying a 3870X2 as said. Either that or keep saving until you've enough money for a bigger spend.

 

[MarcVenice]

+1

Spending money now would be unwise.