How To Best Spend $250 on Upgrading Your Rig

Give Me An Example

We get a lot of emails asking what people should do given the hardware they have

and the budget they are restricted to. Many people on ours and other forums do this all the time. They love helping out their fellow hardware junkies. Forums are good for this but beware; the first hit is always free. :-)

To make an example of a system in use, I took one system I have in the house which I use for HTPC (Home Theater PC) to show what you can do. The processor is an AMD socket 462 2000+ Thoroughbred running at 1.6 GHz on a DFI NF2 Ultra LANParty Motherboard. It currently has 512 MB of PC2700 (333 MHz) running at PC2100 (266 MHz) speeds with tight timings. That CPU was designed around a 266 MHz FSB so the memory reverts to the lowest common denominator, unless you overclock but there is no need for that on this system.

For graphics it has a NVIDIA based Ti4200 video card. It is running Windows XP Professional from an 80 GB Western Digital SATA hard drive. What more could you ask for in a basic HTPC? It is used to play movies, family videos and it also hooked up to the net to visit Homestarrunner.Com for laughs. (my 2 year old loves Homestar)

It isn't used for games and if any of my friends would come over to play, they bring their own rigs anyway. There is nothing better than your own system the way you like it. Okay, I know that I work for THG and I get to play with some of the best toys. Yes, my current system blows the doors off of most systems out there (except the "glacier guys" who liquid nitrogen to cool their rigs and live in Scandinavia).