RAM or SATA : Need help

[OsireS]

Hi

Currently have a fairly oldish mahcine that I'll be getting rid off in the next 8 months due to the fact that I'll be moving countries. Currently my machine is a P4 2.6 HT with 512 megs of DDR 400 (dual channeled so 2 x 256 meg sticks of Transcend memory) with a 120 gig ATA 100 drive (Seagate Baracuda).

Now I can either get a gig of ram (2 x 512 meg sticks, but they will be Apacer memory) or a 160 or 200 gig SATA I hd.

Of the two above which would be the most benefical? I have started noticing HD problems in newer games with them taking a long time to load data off the HD, while I realise more RAM would help this as more data would be stored in RAM would a faster HD not help more in the long run?

Any opinions would be very appreciated

 

[RichPLS]

You will notice a speed boost with a gig of ram, not as much notice with two drives, but if you need the storage, then you have your anser

 

[EntityAnomly]

You should notice a slight increase in hdd transfer speed with a SATA drive, but like RichPLS said you will get a more noticable boost with RAM.

PATA - 100mb/sec -- SATA 150mb/sec = 50% increase in transfer speed
vs
512MB RAM -- 1.5GB RAM = 200% increase in total memory

The delay you are getting from the newer games, might be helped by the RAM as the computer will not have to page to the hard drive if the RAM fills up with only 512MB.

 

[mpjesse]

going from 512MB to 1GB is going to boost performance big time. I saw a huge increase when i did it a couple years ago.

get the RAM.

-mpjesse

 

[pickxx]

PATA - 100mb/sec -- SATA 150mb/sec = 50% increase in transfer speed

you make baby jesus cry....

Yes the INTERFACE can handle more...but the drives are rarely faster by more then 5-10% in sustained throughput. And oftent times they are THE EXACT SAME!!!


and going from 512mb to 1.5Gb isn't a 200% increase....you are just making that up.....

I would say you would notice some performance.....but more like 40% by the #'s under the best circum stances....TOPS!

 

[mpjesse]

LOL. I wish SATA offered a 50% performance jump over UltraATA 133.

 

[pickxx]

No shite....for me it just offers a way to add more HDDs after my IDE's are full....lol

 

[cor_eh]

LOL...and I bumped up my FSB from 266mhz to 333mhz and now my games run 66% faster!...

you should all try it.....

 

[mpjesse]

Er... my FSB 803Mhz...

-mpjesse