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What should I upgrade with my budget?

K

koojoe

Member
Hey guys,

Current system specs:
1.53 Ghz (1800xp)
Soyo Dragon Plus K7V Mobo 266 bus
512 Crucial Ram PC2100
9800 Pro Radeon - 128mb
4x DVD +/- RW
48x CD-RW
Linksys NIC 10/100 NIC
Using onboard sound cmedia

Hard drive - Died a few days ago. Completely gone.. Sector 0 went bad... and sector 1,2,3,4 etc


I've been thinking about adding a sata controller, raptor hard drive, sound blaster live, and an extra storage drive for around $260 I'd like to bring the price down some and have a few questions.

SB Live - $24
37.8 GB WD Raptor SATA - $115
80 GB WD 7200RPM 8 meg cache - $70
Promise SATA TX2Plus Controller - $50


Should I not go with the sata controller and raptor hdd? How much performance loss will I have? I can get a 160-200 gb (slower) drive for the price of the sata hdd alone.

What are your suggestions?

Thanks
G
 
Do you need storage space or a fast drive? That's the determining factor. If anything I'd just get a big IDE drive now and pinch pennies for a new system down the road.
 
I'm wanting better performance out of my system but I'm not sure if the raptor drive is really worth the $$$. I was happy with the performance before.. except when loading game levels it was kinda slow in bf1942.


Would it be better to get 1 big drive or two seperate drives.. one for boot.. one for data.. and make both just eide?

I have a replaytv PVR and store movie files and stream them over the lan to the replay sometimes. I eventually get around to burning dvds but it takes me a while. I think storage is a bigger issue than speed. So the 2 drive question still exists.. 1 for system files.. 1 for data/mpeg2s etc.


Thanks
 
Seagate Cuda IV 7200 RPM - 2 mb cache

It died after 1 year, 3 months of service. Hardly paid its dues to me!
 
Originally posted by: koojoe
I'm wanting better performance out of my system but I'm not sure if the raptor drive is really worth the $$$. I was happy with the performance before.. except when loading game levels it was kinda slow in bf1942.


Would it be better to get 1 big drive or two seperate drives.. one for boot.. one for data.. and make both just eide?

I have a replaytv PVR and store movie files and stream them over the lan to the replay sometimes. I eventually get around to burning dvds but it takes me a while. I think storage is a bigger issue than speed. So the 2 drive question still exists.. 1 for system files.. 1 for data/mpeg2s etc.


Thanks
Click to expand...

I agree, while raptors are definitely cool, not sure its a wise purchase considering your budget. If anything in your system looks like a bottleneck, its the cpu. Unless you have it overclocked or something you might want to invest in like a 2500+ and OC that, instead of getting the raptor.

Your cpu and graphics card ought to be on par with each other for best performance. radeon 9800 pro owns the 1800, lol. =)
 
Can you RMA the drive? It should have a 3 year warranty
Originally posted by: k3nt
Originally posted by: koojoe
I'm wanting better performance out of my system but I'm not sure if the raptor drive is really worth the $$$. I was happy with the performance before.. except when loading game levels it was kinda slow in bf1942.

Would it be better to get 1 big drive or two seperate drives.. one for boot.. one for data.. and make both just eide?

I have a replaytv PVR and store movie files and stream them over the lan to the replay sometimes. I eventually get around to burning dvds but it takes me a while. I think storage is a bigger issue than speed. So the 2 drive question still exists.. 1 for system files.. 1 for data/mpeg2s etc.

Thanks
Click to expand...
I agree, while raptors are definitely cool, not sure its a wise purchase considering your budget. If anything in your system looks like a bottleneck, its the cpu. Unless you have it overclocked or something you might want to invest in like a 2500+ and OC that, instead of getting the raptor.
Click to expand...
If he wants to OC a 2500+ then he'll need a new motherboard and RAM (PC2100 won't cut it), hence my suggestion of just getting a new drive and sitting on the system for a complete overhaul.
 
Yes... online seatools shows the drive does not qualify.. out of date of coverage. Also newegg is out of date of coverage by 3 months.

I'm gonna take the cover off pretty soon.. play with the platters. Never took apart a hdd before 🙂


Anyway I feel my best way to improve performance is to turn everything onboard off and use pci cards. My video card has breathed new life into this system... So I can't do a system overhaul yet.

Not sure what to do. I know I need a hard drive tho. My 300 dollar video card... which is now 210 😕 is sitting in a cold case dying to be fired up :|
 
Originally posted by: koojoe
will the ram be a big issue if I get a new cpu/mobo?
Click to expand...

not huge. but still, athlon xp will run best on pc2700. another 512 and youd REALLY be set for gaming...
 
hrmmm I don't think I could sway that just yet. Just looking at the numbers for a decent 400bus motherboard from asus and a 3000xp processor I'm looking at 200 bucks. That is without a hard drive and using onboard sound, and using my pc2100 ram.



I'm not that unhappy with my system performance. I was just wondering what options I might have for around 200 bucks to speed it up. Since I have to replace the hdd anyway.

What sort of configuration?

etc
 
In all honesty, I think you should hold off on the Raptor purchase and save up like a couple of ppl are saying. An 1800+ and PC2100 ram and onboard sound are what's holding back your system. I'd buy a much cheaper 40-80 gig IDE hard drive and save so that I could upgrade the rest of the system later. Sure the raptor spins at 10,000rpm but I'm betting the performance improvement will be relatively negligible given the rest of the system. You can easily get a 40 gig IDE hd for about 30-40 dollars, whereas you'd be spending 170 for the raptor/controller combo. Also, onboard sound does hold back performance when gaming. Because the onboard solution uses the cpu clock cycles to process audio signals, you can see anywhere up to a 10% drop in gaming performance. I would go ahead and at least by a Live! as you suggested.
 
I'd get a big honkin IDE drive for (which will be faster than your old drive anyway) and recycle it into your next system either as a storage drive (booting off of a Raptor) or as your boot drive.
 
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