Where to spend a newegg cert on my system..

P

plac

Gawd
Joined
Apr 20, 2006
Messages
621
I have $150 in cert and could add maybe $200 of my own money or so. Trying to decide what the weakest part of my system is:

WinXP SP3
Intel Q6600 @ 3ghz
3.25GB ram (seen)
ATI 4870 video w 512MB ram
(1) WD Velociraptor 300GB
Kingwin 700W modular power supply
22" HP wide monitor (1680 x 1050)

Do not want a Intel I7 platform upgrade, way too much $.

Looking for:
faster boot ups, faster response on normal launching/browsing. Don't really play super high end games. My COD MW2 plays fine maxed on this machine already.

Stuff I am considering:
fastest core 2 duo quad processor
5870 video card
solid state drive, but intel 160gb is too expensive
 
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If the system performs as well as you want it to, you don't really need to upgrade anything. For gaming, you'd benefit more from a new video card -- the HD5770 is available for less than $200.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of Kingwin PSUs. What's the model number? How long have you used it for?
 
plac said:
faster boot ups, faster response on normal launching/browsing. Don't really play super high end games. My COD MW2 plays fine maxed on this machine already.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you want an SSD

I have no advice to give on the subject though, as I barely know anything about it :p
 
sell your HP monitor and get two matching 23" or 24"

or

intel 80gb ssd boot drive. With careful management you can do just fine- on my desktop I have 46/80 gigs free. Laptop ssd has a 15gig linux partition and 65gig win7 partition that includes a 50gb dropbox account. Fast as hell.
 
Krytok, how would a WD Caviar Green HDD, which runs at around 5400RPM (though WD won't reveal the exact spindle speed), create faster bootup/loading times?
 
Definitely a raid controller if your mb doesn't have one and 4 cavier blacks.
This will give you the most out of yoru system.... Getting a ssd with xpsp3 will only kill the sdd sooner than later as ive read that trim is a valuable feature.

Also win7 wll make your hardware (*faster)....as it will take advantage of it.
 
Sathsayin said:
Definitely a raid controller if your mb doesn't have one and 4 cavier blacks.
This will give you the most out of yoru system.... Getting a ssd with xpsp3 will only kill the sdd sooner than later as ive read that trim is a valuable feature.

Also win7 wll make your hardware (*faster)....as it will take advantage of it.
Click to expand...

this is ridiculous. RAID won't net you any gains for what you use your rig for- high data availability and throughput speed are not what you want. Get a solid state drive. The benefits of a quality SSD match exactly what you're looking for- awesome boot times and much faster day-to-day tasks that require low seek times and lots of IO.

Look to upgrade the aspects of your computer setup that you interact with most- this is where you'll see the most gain. Quality keyboard, mouse, monitors, audio.. many enthusiasts ignore these in an effort to cram another HD or video card.
 
man, i never got notifications of these replys.. and i know i was subscribed. it never works.

thanks for all the input
 
TheQuestian said:
Definitely this. Why not a smaller "boot drive" like a 60GB OCZ Vertex?
Click to expand...

ah the boot drive.. i just hate splitting everything up. i was shooting for the 160GB so i could just fit all my stuff on it. My "Games" folder is 58GB, and my "Backups" folder is 63GB.
 
I was kinda hung up on all the SSD reviews. And most of them say Intel is the best SSD. and I wanted to do it right the first time if i was gonna buy an SSD. But they are the most expensive.
 
I know why i dont get notifications!!

the damn forum wont take my yahoo address, like 80% of everyone has... i have no other email address to use.
 
Heh, I thought I replied earlier, but I guess not. Anyhow, I, too, had a VRaptor that I was unhappy with. I picked up some SSDs and tried them out... check out my page:

http://ssd.alphaq.org
 
plac said:
Ah, the boot drive . . . I just hate splitting everything up. I was shooting for the 160GB so I could just fit all my stuff on it. My "Games" folder is 58GB, and my "Backups" folder is 63GB.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I understand that. To be honest, tho, I'm sure you realize your current HDD is no slouch, so besting that performance will take some doing. And unfortunately, there is a definite early adopter tax on larger SSD's, at the moment. A tiny boot drive will speed up your boots and Windows interactions without breaking the bank, but more than that will cost you.
 
plac said:
ah the boot drive.. i just hate splitting everything up. i was shooting for the 160GB so i could just fit all my stuff on it. My "Games" folder is 58GB, and my "Backups" folder is 63GB.
Click to expand...

Do not put your backups on a SSD, and probably not even your games. You will see the most benefits when it is used with your OS/apps.
 
ya maybe i can start that way.. just a smaller disk for now, and then if i really love them, a larger one later for everything.. thanks for all the ideas. unfortunately i still only have Win XP so ill have to install that again..
 
You can image your current drive over to the new SSD if you wish, but if you're using XP, you'll probably want to re-align the block size, IIRC.
 
got my OCZ Agility 120GB today. now i gotta wait till i find a good deal on a new copy of win 7. BestBuy doesnt even carry the full versions anymore, just the upgrades.

SSD.jpg
 
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