Is there anything else I can do?

[rking12345678]

Today I received my PSU and CPU and upgraded from an OCZ 500w PSU and AMD x2 5000+ 2.2ghz CPU, my computer now looks like this:

MSI K9N6PGM2-V2 motherboard
Phenom II x4 945 CPU
4 GB RAM (2x 2gb)
XFX HD5770
650w XFX PSU
320GB Western Digital blue HDD
Sony DVD-RW drive
Antec 300 Illusion case

I'm wondering if there's anything left to do or if I'm set finally. Some thoughts include:

-My RAM is mismatched, one ADATA and one Apacer, but the timings and voltage both match @ 5-5-5-18 and 1.8v.
-I don't find myself limited by my HDD space but I don't know the quality of the blue WD HDDs so I don't know if I could do better there.
-I have a pair of $15 Logitech 2 channel speakers so I don't think a sound card would help.

I use this computer for gaming and as a HTPC, any improvements I could make to increase performance of my computer for either purpose or am I fine as is? Thanks for any input.

 

[Davidh373]

Where is the GPU? and the HD is good but it's not the greatest. For $12 more you could get a 1TB Samsung F3.

 

[rking12345678]

This is already built, I'm not ordering it. The CPU and PSU came today, they were upgrades from what I already had. The GPU is listed, XFX HD5770, fourth component in the list.

 

[Davidh373]

I'm sorry, I missed the 5770...

If you already have the comp I wouldn't say the performance of the blue drive is going to be worth shipping it back or getting another drive as long as another computer is thirsty for storage or something.

 

[Cerb]

-I don't find myself limited by my HDD space but I don't know the quality of the blue WD HDDs so I don't know if I could do better there.

HDDs are mechanical devices, and they die. IME, WD and Samsung remain reliable choices, but they still fail. If you are worried, get another drive, and start doing backups. Your drive may last twenty years, or it might fail next week. If you value your data, give it at least two homes.

 

[fffblackmage]

MSI K9N6PGM2-V2 motherboard

I have the same mobo. The chipset only supports up to 1GHz HT, while the cpu can run a HT up to 2GHz. For me, I just use it for basic HTPC use, so I'm not too concerned. However, for use as a gaming machine, this may be a potential bottleneck.

I tried doing a brief google search for reviews/benchmarks on different HT speeds, but the first thing I found was some old benchmarks from Tom's Hardware 2004 article with the HT only up to 1GHz. The test didn't show performance hits until the HT was as low as 400MHz, but that test system was also single core system. I'm just not entirely certain if the results are still relevant today.

-My RAM is mismatched, one ADATA and one Apacer, but the timings and voltage both match @ 5-5-5-18 and 1.8v.

AFAIK, mixing ram won't cause issues unless they require different timings and voltages. I'm currently running mixed ram without issues.

-I have a pair of $15 Logitech 2 channel speakers so I don't think a sound card would help.

Integrated sound is usually decent enough.

 

[s44]

You're fine. Next thing to do is to get a better sound system (feed HDMI from your vidcard into the AVR).