What upgrade/changes would give me better/more/faster performance? More Ram, New CPU or O/C existing PCU?

[powerMarkymark]

Question in title.....................TIA.

Mark

System Specs:
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1800+ 1530MHz


Motherboard: ABIT KR7A 133 RAID


Memory: 1GB of MAJOR PC2100


Video Card: MSI, ATI GF3 TI 200 AGP, RADEON 7000DDR PCI (NVIDIA, ATI)


Hard Drive: WESTERN DIGITAL 60.0 GB @ 7200 RPMS Master Boot Disc connected to onboard RAID connector.


Additional Hard Drives: WESTERN DIGITAL IDE ATA 100 60GB, MAXTOR IDE ATA 133 80GB, MAXTOR IDE ATA 133
80GB, MAXTOR IDE ATA 133, WESTERN DIGITAL IDE ATA 100 120GB, WESTERN DIGITAL IDE ATA 100 120GB


Monitor: 2X Daytek 905 DF19


CDROM Manufacturer & Model: 2 X LITEON CD-RW


DVD Manufacturer & Model: PIONEER


CDR/CDRW Manufacturer & Model: LITE-ON 32X IDE CD-RW, LITE-ON 52X IDE CD-RW, PIONEER DVD-116T 16x


Storage Interface: IDE


Sound Card: SOUND BLASTER AUDIGY


Operating System: Windows_XP Pro


Other Components: Antec 1030 Enermax SPI Case Black Med Server Tower
5 x 80mm case fans, 3 for case intake lower front, 2 for exhaust upper back.
Enermax EG 465 P-VE Whisper Series (Fan Control) 430w Atx Power Supply
Alpha socket 370/fc-pga Heatsink/Fan PAL6035MFC
Arctic Silver III Thermal paste
Leadtek Winfast TV2000XP PCI
1.44mb Floppy Drive
D-Link DFE-538tx 10/100 pci wol Ethernet Card
PS2 Logitech Cordless Keyboard & Freedom Optical Mouse
4 port D-Link Dl-701 Gateway/Firewall Router



Other Info: Drives connected to the onboard RAID connectors are not setup in a RAID configuration.

 

[Chaotic42]

For what? Gaming? Get a new video card.
Fileserver? Go SCSI RAID
AutoCAD? Get a better video card, dual Xeon Processors and motherboard

What do you want to do with it?

 

[powerMarkymark]

Gaming😀

Would like a dual head.........which one would give me best performance or should I just stick to two seperate vid cards for multimonitoring.....................Love my multi monitoring baby. 😉

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: powerMarkymark
Gaming😀

Would like a dual head.........which one would give me best performance or should I just stick to two seperate vid cards for multimonitoring.....................Love my multi monitoring baby. 😉

My Radeon 9700 works fine with 2 monitors, although my second monitor is a 15" from like 1992, so it's not really worth it. What's your budget?

 

[powerMarkymark]

Wouldn't want to go much more than $230.00 - $250.00 USD.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: powerMarkymark
Wouldn't want to go much more than $230.00 - $250.00 USD.

Hmm, well, I have a dual XP 1800+, 1.25GB and a Radeon 9700 and I can run BF1942 @ 1600x1200 with all of the options turned up. I haven't run into a game that I felt I couldn't run well. The Radeon 9700 should be about $250, right in your budget.

 

[powerMarkymark]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: powerMarkymark
Wouldn't want to go much more than $230.00 - $250.00 USD.

Hmm, well, I have a dual XP 1800+, 1.25GB and a Radeon 9700 and I can run BF1942 @ 1600x1200 with all of the options turned up. I haven't run into a game that I felt I couldn't run well. The Radeon 9700 should be about $250, right in your budget.

great........thanks for the heads up Chaotic42.........🙂

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: powerMarkymark
great........thanks for the heads up Chaotic42.........🙂

No problem.

🙂

 

[powerMarkymark]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: powerMarkymark
Wouldn't want to go much more than $230.00 - $250.00 USD.

Hmm, well, I have a dual XP 1800+, 1.25GB and a Radeon 9700 and I can run BF1942 @ 1600x1200 with all of the options turned up. I haven't run into a game that I felt I couldn't run well. The Radeon 9700 should be about $250, right in your budget.

Wow.......this is a $470.00 USD card here in Canada..........any other suggestions?

 

[gooseman]

If the 9700 is too much $$$, you might want to look into the 9500PRO.

 

[w0lf42]

I'm currently running the Albatron Ti4200P Turbo [LINK] (I got it for <$200). It runs dual monitors with independent resolutions in Win2k and WinXP. No complaints here.

 

[JohnnyTT]

Spec look decent.....

Go with a vid card upgrade. If you buy one now, go with a 9500 pro....otherwise wait a few weeks when the new stuff comes out and things should be cheaper.

 

[mrzed]

What is your budget in Canadian $?

250 US = about $430 Canadian.

You can get a Sapphire 9700 non-pro for under $400 canadian.

Future Shop just had the 9700pro retail on for 400, but that's over now.

9500 pro cards run just under $300 CAN.

If you are really thinking of spending that kind of money, I'd seriously look at an OEM 9700 non-pro. Or wait, it never hurts to see what's around the corner, and your Ti200 isn't absolutely stinky. No way of knowing for sure when and how much prices will drop when the NV31/34 and RV350 get released, but drop they will.

 

[CotswoldCS]

Personally, I would stick with your graphics card for a few months and wait for the new RADEON cards to start selling. This will send the price of 9700 cards down to an affordable level. I bought my Radeon 8500 64Mb a few months after the 9700 launch and got it for a real bargain.

I have an ABIT KR7A 133 RAID motherboard. I was very upset to read that this board does not support a CPU any higher than the AthlonXP 2100+. I have heard of one user who was able to modify his board to allow for a 2400+ but this was not enough to convince me to risk buying - so I went for the XP 2100+. The KR7A is a great mobo but the lack of AMD CPU support limits upgrades in the future.

How many hard drives??? Might be time to consider a DVD burner for all that Data!