Thinking of Upgrading

[JulesBravo]

I've got a couple hundred (3 or 4) to spend on some upgrades for my computer. I currently have a IC7-G mobo with a Pentium 4 2.8 with 800 mhz FSB, a radeon 9600 pro, no name brand 512 MB RAM, Artec multimedia drive (supports all cds and dvds), and Maxtor Ultra Series 200GB Hard drive. What would you guys reccomend as far as my next upgrade? I haven't overclocked anything so that's also an option. I'm also in the market to buy a 3-4 hundred dollar monitor so if you could go ahead and make a reccomendation there.

 

[Kevin003]

Well you have many places for upgrade. Your video card probably needs an upgrade and another stick of 512ram would help you. As for overclocking im sure you would be able to overclock that 2.8 to around 3.8 depends on how much you work at it. If i where you i would probably go for a new stick of ram and a overclock on your processor.

 

[JulesBravo]

Yeah I was thinking of just buying two brand new sticks. I just need to figure out how to overclock my processor and need to figure out how to cool the thing. I'm a hardware newb.

 

[gmkmay]

Vid card would be the number one upgrade for $300-400, and it'll probably eat up the entire chunk. 6800gt would be my recomendation.

I would also OC the proc a bit. I'm assuming your using stock cooling, which should be sufficient. Just play around with it a bit and watch your temps

Ram would be a decent upgrade, but you'll notice a much larger difference with a new vid card than more/better ram.

 

[Chelica]

I say slang that stick of Ram you have and get some better name brand 2x512MB of Ram.

Then see how much you have left, sell the Vid Card, and get a better Video Card.

If you plan on OCing, spend $30 bucks on a nice Zalman HSF.

 

[JulesBravo]

I don't even know where to start with the overclocking. Anyone point me to a good tutorial?