My current system is as follows...
Epox 8K7A (AMD 761 chipset)
AMD Athlon 1.2ghz
512MB Crucial PC2100 DDR
MSI GeForce2 Pro
IBM Dekstar 40gig HD (I think it's a 75GXP, not sure)
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
It's a year and a half old, and a few days ago I had my first problem. I'm pretty sure the hard drive burned out on me (which has a 1 year warranty), but I haven't been able to check to make sure it's the hard drive and it could be the motherboard, but for the sake of this post assume it's the hard drive.
At the moment all I use my computer for is occasionally (matches/scrims a few times a week only) playing Counter-Strike at 640x480 (don't ask why, competitive CS players would know) and it sits at 99.9fps no problem. The rest of the time I do basic college stuff, and also rip a LOT of mp3s. At the time of the crash I had the 40gig drive basically full, so it was time for a hard drive upgrade anyway. However, now I have a decision to make.
If I don't upgrade now I will need to upgrade for sure this summer (giving my computer to my brother and building a new one, just a matter of when). I am wondering what you all think the best time for me to upgrade will be. Regardless if I build a new computer now or this summer, $1200 is my budget (have monitor, mouse, keyboard).
My question is whether you think it's smarter to buy a small hard drive for my current computer, give it to my brother, and build a new computer within the next 2 weeks, or if I should wait until the summer? Will I notice a significant performance increase with a new computer from current technology? Is there anything major being developed between now and this summer that would be an incentive to me waiting? Any info is appreciated. Thanks...
Epox 8K7A (AMD 761 chipset)
AMD Athlon 1.2ghz
512MB Crucial PC2100 DDR
MSI GeForce2 Pro
IBM Dekstar 40gig HD (I think it's a 75GXP, not sure)
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
It's a year and a half old, and a few days ago I had my first problem. I'm pretty sure the hard drive burned out on me (which has a 1 year warranty), but I haven't been able to check to make sure it's the hard drive and it could be the motherboard, but for the sake of this post assume it's the hard drive.
At the moment all I use my computer for is occasionally (matches/scrims a few times a week only) playing Counter-Strike at 640x480 (don't ask why, competitive CS players would know) and it sits at 99.9fps no problem. The rest of the time I do basic college stuff, and also rip a LOT of mp3s. At the time of the crash I had the 40gig drive basically full, so it was time for a hard drive upgrade anyway. However, now I have a decision to make.
If I don't upgrade now I will need to upgrade for sure this summer (giving my computer to my brother and building a new one, just a matter of when). I am wondering what you all think the best time for me to upgrade will be. Regardless if I build a new computer now or this summer, $1200 is my budget (have monitor, mouse, keyboard).
My question is whether you think it's smarter to buy a small hard drive for my current computer, give it to my brother, and build a new computer within the next 2 weeks, or if I should wait until the summer? Will I notice a significant performance increase with a new computer from current technology? Is there anything major being developed between now and this summer that would be an incentive to me waiting? Any info is appreciated. Thanks...
