WaterCooling vs New Ram

[leitchcomp]

Since christmas..i have a $200 gift certificate. The two main things i was debating about were a water cooling system or new ram. Ive only been able to overclock my cpu with fan is about 20%(if i remmeber right). The ram i run is 768mb of pc2100.

what do people think would give more performance boost? Water cooling and then overlclocking higher, or changing the ram out for 1gb of pc3200??

i imagine the ram change would be better, but am unsure becuase it is only 256mb more and although it is faster, i have never really seen side by side tests on different speeds.

What do you think??

thanks

 

[InlineFive]

We can give you better advice if you would post complete system specifications. That way we can see what you are upgrading from.

 

[leitchcomp]

no prob.

my comp is at school and im at home so the exact parts may be slightly off...but here's the basic of it.

AMD athlon xp 2400+ (2.0ghz)
Soyo KT400 Ultra MB
Thermaltake Volcano 9 heasink
768mb generic pc2100 ram
ATI radeon 9600


If anything, the water cooling system i would get would be the thermaltake bigwater, becuase it fits nicely within the $200 gift certificate.

The memory would either be corsair XMS (prob dual channel 512's) or OCZ performance series (again, 2 DC 512's).

Of course these are just the options i was looking at. If there are better ones without adding too much to the cost, i am open to them.

 

[ts3433]

A better option for less cost, assuming you go for RAM, is Corsair or Mushkin value RAM--CL2/higher speeds are overrated, even when overclocking, for the most part. However, I know AXPs like you to run synchronous FSB/RAM, so the information here (now stickied in CPU/OC) might not apply as much to you. (I'd wager you're running 200MHz FSB anyway, though, and this kind of value RAM is usually good till 210 or 220. I'd save the rest for another upgrade--to an A64 and/or maybe a new graphics card. Come to think of it, a new graphics card may actually be a better upgrade for gaming, assuming your RAM isn't a very serious bottleneck.)

 

[bockchow]

i think you'd see a bigger improvement selling the 9600 and useing that money plus the 200 to upgrade video. the sytem specs a a little dated to bother going into watercool at this point.

 

[JBT]

Water cooling isn't going to help your performance all that much even if you can OC a little bit higher. If I were you and into gaming I would sell your 9600 and spend the rest on a 6600 GT or 6800. If you just want more system performance I'd sell your current rig and buy an A64 set up should be do able.

 

[leitchcomp]

alright.. about the 64's. does a 64 bit setup show that much of a performance boost, even if the chips are initially rated at the same speeed? (ie. XP@2ghz vs 64bit@2ghz)

 

[ts3433]

Yes. You can't compare the clockspeeds directly--they're different architectures. For quick comparison, an A64 2800+ (1.8 GHz) kills an XP 3200+ (2.2 GHz) in just about everything, and after the A64 3000+ or 3200+ mark it's hard to overclock even a mobile Barton to match an A64.

 

[leitchcomp]

well..i have wanted a 64 for a while. until summer 2005 htough i really dont feel like dealing with selling stuff..or spending tons to upgrade (as the cpu and mb were simply cheap upgrades i got to replace my last mb which got fried somehow in sept).

i think i might go and get a dfi mb and a A64 3200 and pay a lil extra more than the gift cert. at least thats one idea. any opinions on that idea?? i guess then id just bring my current mobo and cpu back home with me to replace the ol piece of crap i hvae here.
unfortunately i wont be gettin extra ram then, id do that in the summer when my income is a bit better. think the A64 upgrade would still be worth it with the ram and video card staying the same?

 

[bockchow]

it depends on why your upgradeing. are you foinf video editing, encodeing, playing video games... what aspect of your system seems to be the problem?

 

[leitchcomp]

no..nothing on my comp is really bothering me. Im just lookin for a performance boost since I have the gift certificate so want to use it. Any parts i replace would just come home with me to make box for here, since this one is way outdated. Since theres no really perfomance prob is why i dont want to go through a whole lot of effort or spend much money

 

[NarcoticHobo]

The new mobo with a a64 is a good idea, but if the choice is between ram and watercooling I would say:

Go with watercooling, as it is something that will last through all of your system builds... however...

In the case that you would be buying a thermaltake bigwater kit, go with ram. As almost all predone watercooling kits suck. Either build the WC yourself (its suprisingly easy) or get a kit from Swiftech, Asetek, or Danger-Den. DO NOT GET THE TT BIGWATER.

 

[bockchow]

what are the spec on the computer you have at home? and what store is this gift certificate for?

 

[Mrvile]

I would get ram solely because ram can be carried over, whereas watercooling probably can't be once you build a new system.

 

[leitchcomp]

its newegg.

i guess i could put a lil extra towards it and get 2 gigs of corsair value ram...maybe lol


ooh..i also see i can get two WD 36.7gb 10,000rpm HD's and just raid them

 

[NarcoticHobo]

Originally posted by: Mrvile
I would get ram solely because ram can be carried over, whereas watercooling probably can't be once you build a new system.

Watercooling can most definitely be carried over, especially if you get a Swiftech MCW6002, then all you have to do is switch the $10 CPU fitting and you are ready to go.

 

[Mrvile]

Ok Narcotic I didn't know that I'm sorry.

Anyway Leitchcomp are you sure you need 2gig? Many people make the mistake of "more is better" and go out and guy more than 1gig of ram. Only people who need more than a gig are video editors, 3D graphic designers, and the like. For us gamers and web surfers 1 is more than enough.

 

[leitchcomp]

haha..no no..im not sure i need 2 gigs... i think it was more of a "because i can" type thing.

to be honest with this budget of $250 +/- 50 i cant imagine anything (ram, A64 w/mobo, raid HD's) would make enough of a difference to shock me (although the A64 would prob do that best), i guess i just want to use it toward ssomething that give me a noticeable difference and that i can keep as i eventually upgrade everything.

 

[Mrvile]

Might wanna spend 140 bucks on a gig of Corsair Valuram just cuz you can, and save the rest. Or you could just save it all towards your next build.

 

[NarcoticHobo]

Originally posted by: leitchcomp
haha..no no..im not sure i need 2 gigs... i think it was more of a "because i can" type thing.

to be honest with this budget of $250 +/- 50 i cant imagine anything (ram, A64 w/mobo, raid HD's) would make enough of a difference to shock me (although the A64 would prob do that best), i guess i just want to use it toward ssomething that give me a noticeable difference and that i can keep as i eventually upgrade everything.

WC can give you a very quiet and cool case. The A64, esp when Win xp 64-bit comes out would probably be the best upgrade though.

 

[bockchow]

what kind of monitor do you have? 250 - 300 can get you a decent LCD

 

[leitchcomp]

yeah..got one of them!! lol i thought of gettin another so i can have two..but i thought the actual box upgrades would prob be more useful.

 

[bockchow]

dude a dual display set-up is awsome. i'd realy look into that

 

[hoppa]

ewww dont get an lcd

i think the performance advantage you'd see with an a64+mobo or with a nv40 vid card would be enormous. just look at benchmark data, man. athlon 2500 to a64 3000 is probably a 25-75% improvement in all areas. same nv40s over the ati 9xxx

oh and please, not the HDs, two 36 gb raptors R0 will give you almost nothing.