Gpu and ram upgrade advice needed

[acidantics]

hello,

i am looking to upgrade my graphics card and my ram too. im looking at 1066mhz ddr2 ram 4gb and maybe a ati card so i can do crossfire in the future, can anyone recommend a great graphics card that will last a few years, money not a huge issue because i could just save up. Is G.Skill or Patriot ram any good? Also on my windows game index my harddrive is holding everything back by about 2 points even after defraging, is that normal? if there is any info i left out that you need, let me know.

Thanks!


My current setup:

AMD II x4 620 (OC'ed to 3.5Ghz)
Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P
Gainward GTS 250 1GB
Kingston 2gb 800mhz ddr2
Creative Audigy 4
Apower 860w psu P4-A860
Windows 7 pro 32bit

 

[IzzyCraft]

the sound card seems rather unnecessary imo considering it's age vs the mobo.

G.skill and patriot are fine companies.

As far as getting 1066 ram it's usually cheaper just to but 800 ram that can run at 1.8v as usually the 1066 ram is rated at like v1.9 or v2.0 which just means it's a ram that has proven to oc to that point. considering the prices now i would just get a 1 stick at 4 gigs that run at ddr2 800 at 1.8 for stability and just oc that suckker.

as far as gpu the gts250 is a pretty good card for it's price range, unless you're spending to get a 5850 i don't see much worth in upgrading to something like 5770 for just small performance gains.

 

[acidantics]

Thanks for the feedback izzy.

is the soundcard really unnecessary, i thought having it would be better for performance because its seperate from the motherboard, like a graphics card is better than onboard graphics. i know its old, but audio technology doesnt advance as fast as video tech. as for the gts250 im not that happy with the performance but i dont know if thats down to the manufactuer of the card or something else. also is there any solution to the fact my harddrives rate so low on the windows game index thing? as for the ati 5850, would that last a few years or should i wait a bit for nvidia to bring out some dx11 cards to drive competition? also i would like to get 1066 ram and im not that worried about price, does anyone have an opinion on which company make better ram, G.Skill or Patriot?

Thanks.

 

[Rustyy117]

On board audio is pretty good nowadays, its not like on board graphics.

G.Skill and Patriot are both good company's, either will be fine. Like Izzy said unless your upgrading to a HD5850 you wont notice that much difference.

When you say "would that last a few years" your asking us to predict the future, but my guess would be yes it would play games in 2 years, just maybe not at the highest settings.

You could wait until march for nVidia, that would be a smart move as you would have time to save up, and nVidia might bring out a faster card for less money (anything is possible)

HDD wont have that much to do with gaming performance, I have a samsung spinpoint F3 500GB and i only score 5.9 (out of 7.9 for W7).