My budget system is almost done...

[Rhoel]

It 's together and working, but I want to replace some of the parts carried over from my old system. Here's what's in it right now.

Antec Sonata case
Sempron 3100+ 1.8@2.3Ghz
xp90 w/panaflo
vnf3-250 9/21 bios
pqi 512mb pc3200 2.5 cas
aiw 9700pro w/artic silencer
wd 40gb hd
hp 530i dvd burner
audigy ls soundcard
Viewsonic G220fb 22"crt

I have $300 left to spend, and just need some help on how. I need a hard drive, more or different memory, or maybe a new video card. I also can ebay the replaced equipment to increase my budget if I need to.

I do need a new hard drive, but I do have a question. I think I remember reading somewhere that using a SATA drive could limit you overclock, is this true. More specifically, true for my board? I can't remember where on the net I read it, can't find it. Almost thinking raptor, but I dunno.

On the issue of memory, should I add another stick of comparable cheap ram, replace with 2x512 of faster ram, or just 1 512mb of pricey ram? And how much do you think it would would affect my overclock?

I'm not sure if I need to replace my video card. I mostly just play Joint Operations, but I do play it a lot, just ask my wife 🙂

Just looking for some input, and you don't have to respond to all my questions.

Thanks for your time,
Rhoel

 

[imported_Negative3]

I would grab an extra 512MB of PC3200 RAM or perhaps sell the stick you have now and grab a 1GB matched pair of Corsair or OCZ PC3200 value...
I would also grab an SATA HDD...200GB or whatever you feel would suffice...

As for SATA drives limiting overclocks...I can't say that it does speaking from experience...currently I have 3 HDDs...1 Maxtor 200GB SATA, 1 Maxtor 120GB PATA inside a Kingwin external enclosure and a 160GB Seagate PATA inside another Kingwin external enclosure...

I overclock my Athlon XP-M 2600+ to 2.6GHz and it's 100% stable...

 

[jpeyton]

SATA drives will limit the FSB in NF3 250 motherboards. Stick with PATA. $100 should get you a 160/200GB drive with an 8MB buffer; stick to brands like Seagate, Maxtor, and Samsung.

Add another stick of comparable RAM; as long as it's passing Memtest, it's good enough. Getting pricier RAM will let you run your memory in 1:1 ratio with your FSB, but I'm not sure if the minor performance boost is worth it in your situation.

Keep your video card for now. Replace it with a nice 6xxx series Nvidia card in a few months when the prices drop. The 9700 is the marathoner of all video cards; still hanging in there after 2 years.

 

[LordPhoenix]

1. Another stick of PQI 512MB PC3200 $90
2. NEC 3500A 16X DVD+/-RW $73
3. Seagate 200GB HD $110
4. Seagate ### HD $Whatevers Left

 

[Rhoel]

Thanks for the input guys. It does sound like the smart thing for me not to do is get a new video card. I was looking around and found this....

http://graphics.tomshardware.c...004/vga_charts-10.html

For Joint Ops anyway, the 6800 is not much faster than the 9700pro.

I was almost gonna get the 6800 nu from bestbuy and order a NV5 silencer. Today is the last day the 6800 is $249.99. I'm probably gonna keep the dvd burner I have, it's a dual layer model. So I guess I'm going to get memory and a hard drive. I'm probably gonna buy something in the next week. I might just get a gig of some 2-2-2-5 ram and a new drive, but I'm still thinking if anyone has any other thoughts on this.

Thanks
Rhoel

 

[Rhoel]

Maybe I'm blowing my budget. Just ordered a gig of Ballistix pc3200 for 222.68 plus tax with free shipping. I guess I'll sell my pqi 512 stick and get a hard drive then! I just couldn't pass it up. It used to be $138, today it's $130 and there was a 15% off coupon if you registered in thier last contest. It will be interesting to see the difference between the Ballistix and my value pqi memory. I've read somewhere that these micron chip are a little more AMD friendly than those tccds.