Looking to buy one component to improve performance

Hi

I can't decide which upgrade to get can you help?

I want to boost performance on my PC and was wondering if I should

a.) create a RAID 0 (Striped Drives) configuration i.e buy another Seagate 250GB Baracuda.

b.) buy another 1 GB of Ram Corsair XMS2 800Mhz 2 x 512MB (4-4-4-12)

What should I do?

PS, I have just got the Baracuda back from RMA so have to rebuild XP onto it anyway.

What will be the biggest gain?

I play BF2142 which runs fine at full settings
I surf and sometimes use VMWARE Server.

Buy more memory. 2 gig total would be the sweet spot for your system running XP and what you do. 3 gig would be nice, if you can find a good deal you are willing to pay for 2 more gig. For what you do currently, you won't notice any difference between 2gig and 3gig total.
HOWEVER, if you plan on moving to Vista any time soon, then 2 more gig for a total of 3 is definetly the way to go.

Where do you have a problem now, if at all? Your system looks good. If you are having a page fault problem, then adding memory is the only thing that will help. If you add memory, get the same speed, voltage and latency as you now have. Preferably get the same brand. You can have problems if you mix types, especially different voltages. 2-3gb seems to be the sweet spot.
If you are not having performance problems, consider adding a second monitor with the money instead.

the ram is preferable because
1) raid 0= unsafe but fast but need a raid controller
2) ram is ram man! dont you want everything to be faster?
IMO 2 GB is the standard in every rig these days so if you want to be better then the standard get 3 or 4 gigs ^^ even though xp 32bit doesnt recognize 4 gigs vista and x64 will!

A RAID 0 array would only reduce your 2142 level loading times by a couple of seconds.

I am utterly shocked! Have any of you people actually used a RAID0 setup? The hard drive is by far the best way to improve performance. I have no idea why anyone is even recommending more memory, especially with BF1942, and using XP. You will get zero performance improvement adding more memory. The reason, BF1942 will not use it. With a RAID0 configuration, there will be a rather noticeable increase in boot up speed.

2GB DDR2 is ok (Value RAM CL5 could be an cheaper option including for 3GB or 4GB...) and 2 hard drives configured in RAID 0 to increase disk access performance -- including also page swap file (even with more RAM windows always use it).

It all depends on your budget but RAM upgrade should be considered in first place. Then consider configure a RAID 0 set if your motherboard allows it. Finally you could try a soft OC (like 10%).

I am a RAID fan, but with only 1gig of memory I would still lean towards more memory first.

it dosent look like he can go to newegg. ide guess he is somewhere in europe.

I posted that stuff at the egg so you'd get the exact part#, and see how good it is. As always do the best you can. VAT is a b!tc#.

f61

I feel bad for you. Not only do you have extremely high income tax rates, but, correct me if I'm wrong, you also have the ridiculous VAR. It's gotten to the point that it's almost better to be on welfare, because if you make any money it gets stripped away from you. And the big money social activists move outside the UK to get the cheaper tax rate while espousing the benefits of socialism. I hope it works out for all in the UK.

I would OC that cpu if i were you, that would be the first thing so that if YOU can notice any differences. You seem to be like an average gamer so extra ram is alwasy preferable.

I haven't got any experience on RAID setting so can't help you on that. But over clock that cpu, you got artic cpu cooler and just let it sits there and wastes?!

RAM.2 gigs is sufficient for XP.Like others have said ditch the 2x512 and get 2x1.In my experience Corsair makes excellent ram.

I was just thinking if you want to upgrade to vista in the future then you are stuck with only 2gigs and slots all full.

I would most definitely go for more RAM. RAID0 will give you some improvement, mainly in load times, but not as much as the extra Gig of RAM. WinXP games best on 2Gb... more than that will not see any real performance boost. Most high-end modern games spend half of their time reading and writing to your swap file if you have only 1Gb of RAM. This is because WinXP will require about 160Mb just to do nothing, and upto about 200Mb if you have Anti-Virus software running. Many makers (such as Dell, HP and Samsung) have said 2Gb is MINIMUM for Vista Premium, so allow 3Gb if you plan to go to Vista in a year or so once they have released the first Service Pack and you need it to be able to use a particular piece of software (Vista only games are already in the stores I noticed last week).
Lil tip for improving swap-file performance... DO NOT allow WinXP to manage your swap file, but set the min and max size to the same value (somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5 times your physical RAM size, upto a total physical and virtual RAM size of 4GB - as said earlier WinXP can only address 4GB max ram).

As to where to buy the RAM, and which brand... Corsair is good but grossly overpriced in the UK. OCZ and GEIL produce excellent quality RAM and are both easily available in the UK at MUCH better prices than Corsair. I have Geil ram in all of my PCs ;-)

As to where, I can heartily recommend Overclockers.co.uk and Microdirect.co.uk. They both are roughly the same VERY good price (e.g. Microdirect have Geil Ultra DDR2 PC6400C4 800MHz 4-4-4-12 at £61.09 for 2x1GB - BARGAIN), have plenty of info about the products on their websites including users comments good and bad, have really fast delivery (next day means next day, and non-next-day is 1-3 days) and will not leave you waiting around for 2 weeks while stuff comes back in stock even though they say they have it in stock (Like Scan.co.uk have done to me before - TWICE). Also, their staff are knowledgable, and can be contacted by phone (I sometimes use their easy to use website, sometimes phone through orders). The one time I had to use returns (duff CPU a couple of years ago), I found that they were very good at microdirect, and received a replacement part the day after they received the duff CPU (this was Microdirect) which is MUCH better than the times I have had to use returns for other companies such as Dabs (which I will no longer use as a consequence).

Hope this helps. ;-)