150 bucks to spend.. but on what?

[Guest]

hey all, first time posting here on the board, and I have only recently been reading tom's hardware.. (btw, which has totally saved my life so far) . . ok I have a bit of a story and a question or 2.. please bare with me

ok. About 4 months ago I bought an HP p4 1.4ghz, 128pc600, had a geforce2mx 32mb and so on.. upon finding this page I found out the guy who talked me into it, totally screwed me. so I walked into best buy and really ripped them a new ***hole or two. heh.. now I have a brand new compaq to love and upgrade. so here's where im at.

its the 7110US series. AMD Athlon 1.33ghz, upgraded today to 640megs of DDR2100, bought a 16x burner, has a new SBlive 5.1, standard geforce2MX 64mb, 60.0GB harddrive, dvd-rom, and the other standards.. now, my uncle just handed me 150 bucks. And I want to know what my next upgrade should be. I use this system for everything from audio to gameing.. although, as wierd as this may sound.. Im kind of an openGL screensaver nerd.

so to my surprise ambientflock still runs like crap in 32bit. im running in 12XX x 7XX res.. sorry for the X's, but im sick and on pain killers, and can't really think straight.. I get the same results on my mom's duron 700 sadly.. so I read here on toms and find out that the MX doesnt really make a diff no matter how fast your pc is.. or maybe I read that wrong.

anyways, now that I've bored 99.9% of you, I wonder, what should I invest in. Im thinking video card, along the lines of a geforce2 pro or something cause I've heard their avail under 150 bucks. or should I spring for the ultra and beg my mother for some more money.. hahah.. I mean, is it gunna make a huge diff.. or even though this is the wrong forum to ask, should I spring for an extra 512DDR chip.. maybe even get a 1.4cpu..

I just really need some opinions, I really want this computer to blow me away. I haven't made up my mind about if I want it to blow me away with audio, I should just give up and get speakers that are better than these crappy pulse 242's (I dont know where though), get a graphics card and which one would be my best bet.. get more ram.. blah blah blah.. or if there's some other great thing out there im totally overlooking and should get for my PC..

ok.. im gunna leave the rest up to you guys, from what I've seen your all pretty damn good at knowing where to go to get the best stuff and what's the best to get. thanks a TON for takeing the time to slave through this long post.

-Entomorph

I usually don't make up sigs.. but I might as well at least say.. thank god for tom

 

[FatBurger]

now I have a brand new compaq to love and upgrade

First of all...the Compaq may have been better than the HP, but not by much. Build your next computer yourself. The motherboard alone will make a world of difference. But no matter. If you like it, then great. Half the people on these boards don't even like their computer when they post

Anyhow, my advice would be to wait a little bit, add $50 (or less) of your own money, and become the proud owner of a Radeon 7500. They aren't out yet, but should be in the next couple of weeks.

<font color=green>I post so you don't have to!
9/11 - RIP</font color=green>

 

[njeske]

I would go for a Radeon 7500. They will be out in a few days and they are in your price range.

On a side note... If you want a well performing gaming machine, you should build your own system next time. It is easier than you probably think, you can get better performance, and you can save a lot of money too.


<font color=red>"I'm not gonna launch a $2 million missile at a $10 tent and hit a camel's butt." -Bush</font color=red>

 

[Stick_e_Mouse]

Use that money for a new motherboard (ECS K7S5A) and power supply (350+ watt).

See a real naked pic of Britney Spears <A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/stick_e_mouse" target="_new">here</A>!!!

 

[AEboy128]

I wouldn't say that compaq's are total crap considering that my dad has a 1.1ghz tbird and he gets almost the same benchmark scores as me for the CPU, he's got a A7V133. My compaq came with a FIC az-11 mobo and i think performs pretty darn good for a store bought pc. I second him buying the radeon 7500. If i had the money i'd buy one. :frown:

My system: <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=8946" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=8946</A>

 

[AMD_Man]

I don't know about you FatBurger, but since the GeForce3TI200 and Radeon 7500 are the same price, I'd go with the GeForce3 TI200. Why? It's faster and more feature rich! The Radeon 8500 will be amazing but the Radeon 7500 is merely an overclocked Radeon. Nowadays, features are more important than performance and the GeForce3 TI200 has both compared to the Radeon 7500.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor