Is there anything I can get to improve my current PC?

Liggs · 6 Oct 2006 at 09:27

Basically at the moment it's a:

AMD Athlon X2 3800+

Asus A8N-E Motherboard

2gb DDR RAM

Two hard drives, one 40gb, one 80gb. I think they are both maxtor. Pretty old though.

Radeon X1800XT 256mb

What's my best thing to do for the best ratio of price to improvement, or should I just leave it as it is. Mainly I want to play Oblivion.

hp7909 · 6 Oct 2006 at 09:37

Liggs said:
{snip}Two hard drives, one 40gb, one 80gb. I think they are both maxtor. Pretty old though{snip}

Loose the Maxtor & pick up a Seagate 7200.10. My Maxtor's started acting up lately

You can use them for back-up & that's what mine is doing, but for day-to-day use don't trust them!

Echo toxin · 6 Oct 2006 at 09:50

That system is still pretty good! To be honest, I would just hang fire now until Vista is released and DX10 cards are available. Then treat yourself to a whole new shabangle of a system.

mikeymike · 6 Oct 2006 at 09:55

ask yourself the one important question, does it play oblivion already to an acceptable standard? if yes then leave it

if the answer is no then id wonder why tbh as thats a more than decent enough spec PC to play it really, ok i would agree with #2 comment, maybe the hdd's are a bit aged, especially as you can pick up a very good 250gig+ sata2 drive for a really decent price, that would probably affect loading times from hdd a lot from what you have currently

semi-pro waster · 6 Oct 2006 at 09:56

A new hard drive is about the only thing I'd consider spending money on as it is about all you could transfer to a new system, as hp7909 says the 7200.10 range are good and very quick.

pastymuncher · 6 Oct 2006 at 09:58

You could always overclock what you have which would give you a decent boost. You may have to get a decent cpu cooler if you only have the stock one. That should give you lower temps and hopefully be a bit/lot quieter.

Liggs · 6 Oct 2006 at 10:04

Re:

To be honest I've got a pretty good processor, but I haven't got the first clue about overclocking anything. I've tried to learn but I can't seem to understand it. I'm not dumb with computers or anything, maybe I'm just looking in the wrong place.

I think I'll get a couple of new hard drives though, as you said.

Usher · 6 Oct 2006 at 10:08

A fast hardrive helps in Oblivion without doubt, when galloping on a horse thru woods or grasslands then the drive has to keep snatching data as you go along & you can get hesitations & stuttering regardless of your graphic card etc. With tweaking I have all but totally eliminated this .

I have Oblivion loaded on both my drives, a 74gig raptor & a maxtor 80
& the raptor is a heck of a lot better for games that need constant access to the drive without a doubt .