Small Upgrade

G

Gillette

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Feb 6, 2005
Messages
1,319
Rather than splurge on a new system I'm looking at buying some hardware to upgrade the desktop currently in my sig.

Upgrade 512MB 8800GT -> 1GB 4870
Upgrade 2GB RAM -> 4GB
Upgrade 250GB -> RAID-0'D 500GBs

Think it's a worthwhile upgrade? Will run me $335 total.

I'm gaming on a 24" screen (1920x1200) so I think the upgraded video card will make a huge difference, I expect the RAM will as well. Not 100% sure about the hard drives...
 
Looks like a pretty darn pro upgrade to me. Should be quite noticeable in gaming with that 4870 and mad file transfers with the RAID.
 
Instead of 500GB drives, go with 640GB drives. The Western Digital Caviar drives both use two 320GB platters each, and each drive is known to only be about 10% slower than the WD VelociRaptor.

4GB of RAM is good, but don't get OCZ Reapers or Corsair Dominators. They're not worth the extra money. A good DDR2 1600 kit would be enough to maintain your current overclock.

I suggest spending the extra money on the HD4890. It outperforms the HD4870 and doesn't cost that much more (compared to the GTX 280/285).
 
Buying the HDs and GPU from a friend in this case so changing them isnt really an option. The 500s are the 500AAKS (similar specs to the 640AAKS from what I've seen on RAID specs).

The OCZ Reaper is $35 for the extra 2GB and matches the pair I already have :p

Keep in mind this is in good old Canadian play money!
 
If you're going from 2x1GB to 4x1GB you can probably expect to have to restablize your OC from the added stress on the NB using 4 sticks.
 
Yeah, I'm not too concerned about my current OC though - I've taken the CPU up to 3.65 with the current RAM and I'm just running at 3.5 right now.

What kind of hit should I expect? I've got a lot of room to work with temperatures, but I imagine even if I need to back down to 3.4 the extra RAM, GPU, and HDs will far more than make up for the 100mhz loss.
 
I'm guessing around 3.2 to 3.4Ghz with 4 sticks. Don't forget to raise your NB and vDIMM voltages.

While the specs may seem the same between the drives, they 500GB drives use 250GB platters, making them about 25% slower than the 640GB drives, which use 320GB platters. I know you can't change them, I'm just pointing out the specs you can't see on the WD website. ;)
 
Ah, good to know!

If I have to drop down to 3.2 I'll probably just cut my losses and buy a 2x2GB kit.

I'm running a 250GB single drive right now, so I imagine even with the poorer performance of the 500GBs (compared to the 640) I'll still see a tremendous performance increase.
 
I'm not sure if it'll be tremendous, but its a nice bump. ;) You'll most likely go from 50-65MB/s to 95-115MB/s.
 
Decided to take your advice - changing my 2GB order to the 4GB kit (I'll resell my 2x1GB to a friend). Buying 2 640 AAKS drives instead of the 500s as well.

Comes out to about $100 more in total but lets me keep my OC completely stable and get better performance out of the HDs.
 
Well, a single WD6400AAKS still would have been a nice bump in performance, too. ;) Those things run at around 90MB/s.
 
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