Upgrading Advice?

[MattStone]

I'm currently running an Palamino 1700XP on an ECS K7S5A with 512MB of Crucial PC133 SDRAM. I've got a Radeon 9700Pro on the way, so the video board is taken care of, but I'm trying to decide what to upgrade next. Would a gig of DDR RAM be worth it, or should I upgrade the CPU first. My plans are to have the whole system overhauled by the end of summer, but basically I want to know what I should do first.

Thx in advance.

 

[snidy1]

I would replace the motherboard with an Nforce 2 along with DDR ram, then build that up as the funds become available.

 

[waylman]

Originally posted by: snidy1
I would replace the motherboard with an Nforce 2 along with DDR ram, then build that up as the funds become available.

Ditto

 

[Hanzou]

I third that, your ram is in dire nedd to be upgraded.

 

[MattStone]

That's what I figured. I think I'll order a gig of PC2700 asap.

 

[capricorn]

I agree with the motherboard comment. Going from PC133 SDRAM to 333 MHz DDR made a whole lot of difference for me. Your Athlon 1700 and heak sink/fan would carry forward. If you went with an nForce 2 board, audio is handled and the graphics card you are getting would work well in that combo. 512 MB of RAM is enough for now, but I've heard that you should by 2X256MB rather than 1x512 MB to get the most out of an nForce M/B.

-cap

 

[MattStone]

I've got a Herc GTXP now, is the onboard nForce sound better?

Also, too late to stick with 512 now, just ordered a gig of Corsair

Do you guys really think that my 1700 would last a while? I was hell-bent on upgrading both chip and mobo, but if you think a new mobo (combined with the new RAM) would improve for the time being than I suppose I could hold off on the CPU.

Thanks!

 

[snidy1]

Originally posted by: Matt Stone
I've got a Herc GTXP now, is the onboard nForce sound better?

Also, too late to stick with 512 now, just ordered a gig of Corsair

Do you guys really think that my 1700 would last a while? I was hell-bent on upgrading both chip and mobo, but if you think a new mobo (combined with the new RAM) would improve for the time being than I suppose I could hold off on the CPU.

Thanks!

You could add an XP 2400 for $100. The onboard sound on the Asus board is better than the Herculies GTXP. Is your memory 2 X 512 or just one stick of gig? 2 X 512 would be better so you can use dual channel.

 

[MattStone]

I ordered 2 sticks of 512.

Wow, I didn't realize that there was onboard sound better than the GTXP, although I'm not sure if I want to replace it just yet. The breakout box is great.

Does the Asus overclock well? I've never been an overclocker, but if I can get a little more juice out of my 1700 (enough to hold off an upgrade for 4 months or so) that would be great.

 

[snidy1]

I haven't overclocked mine yet, but I heard they do well. I'm not sure if the 1700 is unlocked though. The 1700 should be fast enough for a few months though.