I have some cash leftover this month ( for a change ) and would like to use it towards an upgrade before HL2. What would make more of a performance difference at the end of the day, an extra 512 Mb RAM ( making a total og 1Gb ) or upgrading my XP2000+ to a 2800+ ?
Yes but unless he has PC3200 ram he wouldn't be able to take advantage of the XP3200+ b/c it uses FSB200 unlike the lesser models which use FSB166...I would say get the CPU because 512MB + a good CPU will run games better than a bunch of ram and a slow CPU. Also, you may want to think about overclocking...you can look into getting a MOBILE Athlon XP 2500+ and O/Cing it to 3200+ or beyond speeds on simple air cooling. You would save money doing that as well.
Yes, in almost every thread about a XP CPU, the 2500+ mobile comes up somewhere. It is highly regarded on these boards, and just because of that I won't hesitate to recommend one. I'm also about to pick one up for my old XP computer, because they are about to get very rare b/c of the high demand
The xp-m chips now come in a lower voltage format as well. Most people have had success with the 45 watt version (mine runs fine @2.4 ghz) so no point in spending more to get the 35 watt version.
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