Bad case of the upgrades advice needed......

[BIGkev1001]

My current system:
ECS K7S5A
XP 1600+
512 MB Nanya pc2100
Visiontek GF3 TI200
SB Live value
40 Gig ata100 7200 rpm maxtor HD
Lite on 16X dvd
Lite on 32X burner

I have a bad case of the upgrades and I want some advice. Should I upgrade the CPU to a 2000+ or should I replace the mobo with something that has onboard RAID? I hear different things about running RAID 0..... Some people say it has huge effects on performance and some say it has none. Also would I notice a difference if I replace the CPU? Or should I just say screw it and wait until the next generation CPU's (Opteron) and Video cards come out this fall? I can't justify going to GF4 right now.

Thanks

BIGkev

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

save your money... seriously ... save your money

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=9933" target="_new"> My Rig </A>

 

[Croaker]

What software can't you run on your system? Your system is maybe faster than 50% of members of THG. My system is almost the same except i have only a GF2gts and a XP 1900+.

 

[AMD_Man]

Your system is fast enough, the only upgrade you might consider is getting a RAID controller and a second hard drive.

<b><i>"A penny saved is a penny earned!"</i></b>

 

[Oni]

You only need raid if you do lots of hard drive intensive applications. For instance if you want to capture video, you might want to consider raid-0. Or if you play a lot of games and want them to load marginally faster. There is something to be wary of though, and thats the crashing raid-0 array. If you run 2 hard drives in raid-0 the data is "striped" between the two drives, so while one reads/writes data the other is getting ready to read/write so when called upon the reading/writing is faster and more uniform (confused yet?) so if one of your drives fails, goes bad, has a catastrophic error then everything on that raid array is gone. I have an 80 gig raid-0 array for video/audio capture and video games and loosing that array once was enough for me to go buy a 60 gig 5400 rpm hard drive to back all my stuff up to it.
In my experience raid-0 is pretty nice, things load faster, if you capture video theres significantly less chance for dropped frames, and its cheaper than scsi.
Your system is plenty fast so depending on what you want to run faster you do/don't need to upgrade. With a Ti200 I guess that you play some games so if this is the case wait for the Thorougbreds to come out and push Athlon XP prices down and then get a newer CPU then, everything else in your system looks fast enough for the time being. 512 megs of ram is plenty, if you can't justify getting Geforce 4 Ti then your video card is fast enough for you.
Right now Geforce 4 is for people that want their games to simply have higher quality. Its good for running higher resolutions and actually utilizing Anti Aliasing, and maybe anisotropic filtering depending on what resolution they run.
Right now no one knows how much Opteron will cost so waiting for that might not work out, just look at what you do with your computer, and what you want to be faster and then decide. And if you do just buy a PCI raid card get something based off of Highpoint, their raid controllers are becoming far better than Promisetech ones. My friend has a Promisetech and he looses his array ALL the time, several times a day no matter what he does. My friends and I have tried everything we can think of and it still happens. Good luck.

If my response is brief and vague its because the info you provided is too!

 

[tnadrev]

i am waiting until barton to upgrade, and so should you... at least... maybe until hammer...

(bb || !bb) - Shakespeare

 

[Zort]

Your computer is pretty solid (though I question anything with the brand name of "ECS", that's another issue entirely). I'd hold off on upgrades for another year or so.. lots of things like serial ATA, 8x AGP, and 64 bit processors (I hope) are just beginning to be realized - once those come out you could get some serious powah.

If you're really that desperate to spend money, I'll be happy to take any.

 

[eden]

You should definitly wait. Only sick people could possibly upgrade a system that is able to do anything you want in acceptable performance. I have an XP1600+ and a Ti200 OCed, so I know that there is little benefit from changing the processor, or the vid card as both are very good players in today's games and video apps.

My advice, do like me, wait for ClawHammers of next year, which will be around PR4400, then go buy a GF 5 or whatever Nvidia calls them. They are expected to be like GF3, revolutionary products. Most likely fully programmable GPUs will debut on them, which means gaming at its best!

--
Thunderbirds in wintertime, Northwoods in summertime! :lol:

 

[kusek]

I'm with everyone else. There not much you will gain by spending money. Save it for a major upgrade later.

<font color=green>"No Thoroughbred for you! Come back, 2 weeks."</font color=green>

 

[dhlucke]

Dude, blow your wad. Buy everything!





Seriously, if you have money burning a hole in your pocket, buy a new monitor or something usefull like a new computer chair.

<font color=red>God</font color=red> <font color=blue>Bless</font color=blue> <font color=red>America!</font color=red>

 

[Intel_inside]

you don't need to upgrade anything

<i>My life wasn't complete untill I tried sse-2 optimized pong</i>

 

[Siddhartha]

How about upgrading your interfaces: monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers?

"Just the facts ma'am"

 

[BIGkev1001]

Hey thanks guys. I think I'm going to hold off until fall. From what I've read here and other sites niether upgrade would really have any substantial benefit.

BTW - all of my input peripherals are logitech wireless and my moniter is a nec fe700+ (wanted the 900 put didn't have a enough room).

Thanks agian,

BIGkev

 

[labdog]

rofl.


<i>if <b>you know</b> <font color=white>you don't know<font color=black>, the way could be more easy ...<font color=red>