Making it last a bit longer

[saddler]

I've been looking at replacing my 3 year old system, but I dont really see the point yet. My rig can cope with most things and I may as well wait until AM2/Vista/DX10 systems are around and working stabily, say around 18 months from now (need that time to save the money as well!).

That said I feel my rig could be improved to help it last that long. My plan is to do the following:

Take my rig:
Asus A7n8xdeluxe
AMD XP3000 Barton
2 x 512MB Crucial XMS3200 Platinum
2 x 250mb WD Caviar Hard drives
Liteon cd drive
Samsung DVDr
Nvidia 6800GT AGP card

And add/replace with the following:
1 x 1GB Crucial XMS3200 Platinum (mobo has 3 slots giving 2Gb total)
1 x WD 74Gb Raptor (new version)
1 x NEC DVD Dual layer drive
3 x New case fans

As I mostly use it for image editing and playing Football Manager the increase in memory and the faster hard drive will be a great help.

My budget is around £300 and I dont see how I can improve the system much more for that money.

What do folks think of my plans?

 

[Mikey1280]

Unless your loading times are very slow I wouldnt really bother buying the raptor

 

[comradpoplin!]

buy a big cpu cooler oc the chip and buy the memory put what you have left into the savings jar for the next pc

 

[barney]

buy a big cpu cooler oc the chip and buy the memory put what you have left into the savings jar for the next pc

Thats a good plan and what i would suggest too (or get a cheap 80gb Hdd if you need the extra storage space).

I like the title btw, was tempted to answer with "Have you tried thinking about football and if all else fails maybe go and see your doctor"

 

[split]

I've been looking at replacing my 3 year old system, but I dont really see the point yet. My rig can cope with most things and I may as well wait until AM2/Vista/DX10 systems are around and working stabily, say around 18 months from now (need that time to save the money as well!).

That said I feel my rig could be improved to help it last that long. My plan is to do the following:

Take my rig:
Asus A7n8xdeluxe
AMD XP3000 Barton
2 x 512MB Crucial XMS3200 Platinum
2 x 250mb WD Caviar Hard drives
Liteon cd drive
Samsung DVDr
Nvidia 6800GT AGP card

And add/replace with the following:
1 x 1GB Crucial XMS3200 Platinum (mobo has 3 slots giving 2Gb total)
1 x WD 74Gb Raptor (new version)
1 x NEC DVD Dual layer drive
3 x New case fans

What do folks think of my plans?

For starters, you haven't got "2 x 512MB Crucial XMS3200 Platinum" it's Corsair if it's XMS Platinum.
Unless you can find that memory, don't bother as it needs to match.
Ideally you would need a 1GIG stick to have all the memory in 128 bit not that it makes a huge difference.
It would go like this (except your using larger sticks)

I can understand you wanting to get a DVD writer if you need to burn DVD's.
I can't see the point in cooling what's been running for 3 years unless you want to overclock it or it's noisy.

The Raptor will make it noisy anyway, and only reduce your boot times. You won't see a huge difference with anything else.

I would save some money if I was you.

 

[saddler]

For starters, you haven't got "2 x 512MB Crucial XMS3200 Platinum" it's Corsair if it's XMS Platinum.
Unless you can find that memory, don't bother as it needs to match.
Ideally you would need a 1GIG stick to have all the memory in 128 bit not that it makes a huge difference.
It would go like this (except your using larger sticks)

I can understand you wanting to get a DVD writer if you need to burn DVD's.
I can't see the point in cooling what's been running for 3 years unless you want to overclock it or it's noisy.

The Raptor will make it noisy anyway, and only reduce your boot times. You won't see a huge difference with anything else.

I would save some money if I was you.

Yeah, sorry it is Corsair memory, dunno why I typed crucial.

I need a dvd writer to back photos up and I cant trust the samsung one i've got (seems to burn ok but half the discs wont play back again in that or any other drive).

The fans are to replace the exisiting ones, which the bearings are going in.

The raptor drive proably isnt necessary but in the case of Football Manager the save games are 500mb+, these are decompressed when loading, consist of hundreds of files that get updated every few seconds when playing and compressed when saving, so the hard drive takes quite a beating. The extra memory was also to help this.

 

[The $6m Dan]

For starters, you haven't got "2 x 512MB Crucial XMS3200 Platinum" it's Corsair if it's XMS Platinum.
Unless you can find that memory, don't bother as it needs to match.

Is that an issue with that specific board and memory combo?

My old Abit NF7-S (also an NForce2) system was fine when running 2 sticks of twinmoss and 1 Corsair. I don't see why his would be any different.

 

[split]

I understand what your saying, and I guess you will always have the fans / dvd writer to move into to your next system.

You might have a job finding the memory, and those board can be a tad fussy on same chips etc when you add that amount, so be carefull.

I just find raptors noisy, and not really worth the money.

Is that an issue with that specific board and memory combo?

My old Abit NF7-S (also an NForce2) system was fine when running 2 sticks of twinmoss and 1 Corsair. I don't see why his would be any different.

It's pure luck, and you have been lucky.
I can't find the thread on it now, (over here somewhere) but some mixes of memory gave grief on the Asus A7n8xdeluxe.
Maybe the NF7-S (great board) is more fault tolerant as ABIT didn't release that for ages. (or maybe the mem got better)
I just hate 'maybe's' when buying memory.