If you were in my shoes, which upgrade would you get?

dguy6789

Diamond Member
Dec 9, 2002
8,558
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My current system is in my signature. I use it for various tasks, from playing games to photoshopping to video encoding.

You should be aware that it is socket 754 and also a Shuttle XPC. This means that while it has an AGP8X slot, it is limited to single slot video cards. The system also has only two memory slots, each of which has a 512MB stick now.

If I were to buy one of the above upgrades, I would likely sell the part it is replacing.

What do you guys suggest?
 

Matthias99

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2003
8,808
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For gaming, the video card is holding you back the most (except in a handful of games, like BF2 and some MMORPGs, where having >1GB of RAM can help performance, but a better video card would still help).

For Photoshop+encoding, a faster CPU would help the most. Video encoding generally doesn't need that much RAM, and neither does Photoshop unless you are working on ENORMOUS images with lots of layers (or you have tons of files open at once).

If you had only 512MB of RAM, I'd say to upgrade that first. But 1GB is adequate for almost all games, and shouldn't be limiting you in PS (unless, as noted, you work on lots of huge, complex images).

Also, you can probably still get ~$100 now for the 9800XT, but its value might drop precipitously in the next 6-12 months. Your CPU and RAM are more likely to still hold most of their resale value.
 

ribbon13

Diamond Member
Feb 1, 2005
9,343
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scratch that, didn't even think about Shuttle == mATX limit.

I'd say 2GB of ram ($108x2), since that will be reusable, because socket939 will eventually be the budget line.