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Alright, I've been planning to make some changes to my system for a while, but with my Western Digital's recent death, I decided that now might be a good time to go ahead with the upgrade.
Firstly, I want to replace the noisy stock HSF on my Radeon 9600 Pro with something heftier, like a Zalman unit or something like that. Does anyone have any experience in this area? I'm not sure whether or not the mounting holes on this card are appropriate for a heatsink such as that one. Any tips would be appreciated.
I also wanted to upgrade my memory. Now what I currently have is a 512mb stick of PC3200 Kingston Value RAM. What I'm wondering is if I should buy another 512mb stick of the same type for dual channel benefits, or if I would need to buy something pricier like some Corsair XMS or Kingston HyperX. Keep in mind, I'm not going for absolute performance; I just want to be able to overclock my 2.4C to something like 3ghz at 5:4. However, if I was going to buy new memory, does anyone know what type works best with ABIT's game accelerator?
Finally I want to get a new sound card. Right now I'm using this piece of crap onboard Realtek garbage that makes hissing and squealing noises if I move windows around at full volume. I want a card with very good sound quality, while still performing well when needed. Also, would the front headphone port that came with my motherboard connect to the sound card itself, or would it still be attached to the pins on the mobo?
Any comments would really be helpful here. I don't want to waste any more money, and I'm kinda clueless at the moment.
Firstly, I want to replace the noisy stock HSF on my Radeon 9600 Pro with something heftier, like a Zalman unit or something like that. Does anyone have any experience in this area? I'm not sure whether or not the mounting holes on this card are appropriate for a heatsink such as that one. Any tips would be appreciated.
I also wanted to upgrade my memory. Now what I currently have is a 512mb stick of PC3200 Kingston Value RAM. What I'm wondering is if I should buy another 512mb stick of the same type for dual channel benefits, or if I would need to buy something pricier like some Corsair XMS or Kingston HyperX. Keep in mind, I'm not going for absolute performance; I just want to be able to overclock my 2.4C to something like 3ghz at 5:4. However, if I was going to buy new memory, does anyone know what type works best with ABIT's game accelerator?
Finally I want to get a new sound card. Right now I'm using this piece of crap onboard Realtek garbage that makes hissing and squealing noises if I move windows around at full volume. I want a card with very good sound quality, while still performing well when needed. Also, would the front headphone port that came with my motherboard connect to the sound card itself, or would it still be attached to the pins on the mobo?
Any comments would really be helpful here. I don't want to waste any more money, and I'm kinda clueless at the moment.