Do I need an upgrade? If so, in what area, based on my budget? Advice Appreciated! :)

[st@rsky]

Hello All,

My PC has been a little slow of late (probably a memory issue), but I am thinking whether I need to upgrade things a little.

I don't really want to go down the route of a complete upgrade but would like some views on whether I need to or in what area I could/should consider improving on.

If we say I have a budget of around £500 for necessary upgrades, give or take £100 or so.

Here are my current specifications:

Asus P5B Deluxe
Intel Core 2 Duo 6400 @ 2.64 Ghz
Zalman CNPS9500-LE
Corsair 2GB DDR2 Twin2X XMS2 Dual Channel PC2-6400
HIS ATi Radeon X1900 XT ICEQ 3 Silent Heatpipe
Seagate 250GB SATA-II
Seagate 80GB SATA-II
Tagan 530W
Thermaltake VB1000SWS Soprano

I would appreciate any thoughts or advice. I have been "out of the game" since my last upgrade so will need to do some reading around to catch up on 12 months or so industry advances..

Thanks guys!

 

[st@rsky]

Thanks for coming back to me guys, much appreciated!

With regard to usage, mainly for work but I do a little bit of gaming and watch quite a lot of movies on the PC. I also have a 22in TFT too.

Interesting to hear I can push my CPU a bit further, I'll probably give that a go when I get the ram upgrade?

I'm thinking that I'll make the step up to Vista when I do this upgrade to answer "thefishdude" who asked. Not sure about 32bit or 64bit, I've never really given it much thought? Is that something that would work on my system? (One assumes 64 bit is now more settled than it was 12 months ago??). Upgrading to Vista also prompted me to think about a ram upgrade as I understand upgrading to 4gb on XP isn't really that efficient? Edit: Just read that to make use of 4GB you should get a 64 bit operating system, so I should go for Vista 64 bit? Is that going to work with my existing system plus a ram upgrade or do I need to make other changes?

Also interesting to hear the changes on the graphics card front, it would seem mine is something of a relic now although it still performs quite well. The new ATI 48** series is the way to go then we feel? I see the Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 is on offer at the moment, is that a good card or would I be better with something else? I've always been an ATI man but if Nvidia are raising the bar then don't be afraid to pass that info on...

Thanks again for your advice so far chaps, highly useful!

 

[st@rsky]

Anymore thoughts on this for me guys?

Here's what I came up with:

Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) [£70.49 inc vat]
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (66I-01939) [£62.26 inc vat]
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST3500320AS) [£49.34 inc vat]
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail [£185.64 inc vat]

Total = £367.73 inc vat.

Thoughts on that upgrade? Is it all compatible and worthy with my current setup? (see sig)

Also, can I run my current 2x1GB of Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB) with the new stuff? Therefore taking my total to 6GB??

Thanks in advance!