Ram or GPU!?

fastwunz · 23 Oct 2006 at 11:31

See my sig bellow.

I have a slight dilema - ive just agreed to sell my 7800 GT Extreme to a mate for £100 as he wants to go Sli.

Problem is - i dont know whether i should invest in new ram first and then wait for some more funds to get a new card or whether i should let him have my 7800 now, buy a new card and get the ram later.

Im thinking just sell the card and put a new one in and get the ram later - thoughts? oh and what card for £250 under - also what Ram?

Thanks

semi-pro waster · 23 Oct 2006 at 11:41

Well remembering that DDR isn't compatible with socket AM2 or socket 775(generally speaking although I know there are a couple of motherboards that can cope) I'd suggest just going for a new graphics card.

I'd probably pick the X1900XT 256mb at the moment because it is a bit of a bargain at ~£165 or maybe even a 7900GS which retails at about £120-140. You can spend more if you want but unless you are gaming at 1600x1200 or above you probably won't notice any difference with having 512mb Ram and I don't think you will find much better cards this side of £250.

fastwunz · 23 Oct 2006 at 11:50

yeh, i see your point. Thing is - im also not sure whether i need to get a new mobo so that i can use better than DDR ram?

My current Mobo is a socket 939 Gigabyte Nforce 4 NON sli - its prolly about 1.5 yrs old. I dont know too much about ram so as far as i know, on this board i can only use DDR?

The ati card sounds good - although im currently only using a crappy CRT so cant get to massive resolutions.

I just feel that my 7800GT ED is running great but an extra gig of ram would do wonders -............so confused

semi-pro waster · 23 Oct 2006 at 11:58

If you need or want the extra gb of Ram then don't let me stop you, I'm just pointing out that you can't transfer it to a new system if that was your intention. You can't use DDR2 with socket 939 at all so that rules out that upgrade option totally.

If you do sell the graphics card to your mate then you could either get the X1900XT for £165 and then spend the remainder on getting 1gb of decent Ram but you would only be able to run it at 2T rather than 1T so it may limit any potential overclocks or you could buy a new graphics card, sell off your old Ram and buy 2x1gb matched pair of Ram.

fastwunz · 23 Oct 2006 at 12:07

semi-pro waster said:
If you need or want the extra gb of Ram then don't let me stop you, I'm just pointing out that you can't transfer it to a new system if that was your intention. You can't use DDR2 with socket 939 at all so that rules out that upgrade option totally.

If you do sell the graphics card to your mate then you could either get the X1900XT for £165 and then spend the remainder on getting 1gb of decent Ram but you would only be able to run it at 2T rather than 1T so it may limit any potential overclocks or you could buy a new graphics card, sell off your old Ram and buy 2x1gb matched pair of Ram.

Good advice mate - what mobos use DDR2? i would like to get a T1 running matched pair of 1gb - think ive come to a decision - ill get the new card, then next month (when i get paid again) ill get the new mobo and ram so that i can run DDR2 at T1 - sound like a good idea?

semi-pro waster · 23 Oct 2006 at 12:11

fastwunz said:
Good advice mate - what mobos use DDR2? i would like to get a T1 running matched pair of 1gb - think ive come to a decision - ill get the new card, then next month (when i get paid again) ill get the new mobo and ram so that i can run DDR2 at T1 - sound like a good idea?

Sorry I maybe didn't explain myself enough clearly there, with socket 939 you are limited to DDR only, no motherboard(as far as I am aware) supports DDR2. Therefore you could sell off your existing Ram and get a matched pair of 2x1gb DDR chips to go with a new graphics card but DDR2 is not an option without a CPU upgrade as well.

fastwunz · 23 Oct 2006 at 12:22

semi-pro waster said:
Sorry I maybe didn't explain myself enough clearly there, with socket 939 you are limited to DDR only, no motherboard(as far as I am aware) supports DDR2. Therefore you could sell off your existing Ram and get a matched pair of 2x1gb DDR chips to go with a new graphics card but DDR2 is not an option without a CPU upgrade as well.

Its cool i understand - just spoken with a mate. Basically im gonna get an Ati X1900XT 512 this month - also, he is gonna buy my ram, cpu and mobo for a couple of hundred which basically menas i can go conroe and get a new mobo - in all i should only end up spending about £150 if i get new rammage too hehe - should be good!