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- Joined
- 13 Feb 2013
- Posts
- 6
I built my system about 5 years ago (with help from OCUK) with an AMD 64 X2 4800+ and 2GB of RAM. I've stuck with XP for far too long, so I'm finally about to upgrade to W7, and I'm wondering whether to upgrade any of the components while I'm about it.
I'm not a gamer and, apart from the usual browsing, the computer is used mostly for Photoshop and Dreamweaver. But I am a multi-tasker, what I really want is a system that can have 30 web pages running in the background (it's just just the way I work
), several multi layered, high-resolution images in Photoshop and plenty of pages open in Dreamweaver — and still fly. I want applications to open quickly, images to load quickly and I want to be able to switch quickly from one application to another. At least that's my ideal.
Options:
1. Memory. My mobo is DDR2 which is now very expensive with prices for 2x4gb being an eye-watering £250. But OC are selling Kingston HyperX 2x2GB for a more reasonable £60, giving me 6GB in total. Is this enough for my requirements, with W7? I could buy a second pair to replace my existing pair giving me 8GB for £120. Not sure it would be worth the extra though.
2. SSD. They've become cheap and it would be very tempting to buy one for the OS partition. I'm currently using RAID0 for speed on my two 500gb SATA drives, but I'm tempted to switch to RAID1, especially as my disks are a few years old now. Would the extra speed of the SSD make up for the loss in speed in switching to RAID 1?
3. New mobo + CPU + RAM. I think this would cost more than I'm prepared to spend right now. But it would allow me to buy cheaper, faster DDR3 memory (is 16GB overkill?) but I don't know how much benefit I would get for my requirements.
To summarise:
1. Is 6GB enough memory?
2. Should I buy an SSD and/or switch from RAID0 to RAID1?
3. Is it worth upgrading my mobo?
Any thoughts gratefully received.
I'm not a gamer and, apart from the usual browsing, the computer is used mostly for Photoshop and Dreamweaver. But I am a multi-tasker, what I really want is a system that can have 30 web pages running in the background (it's just just the way I work
), several multi layered, high-resolution images in Photoshop and plenty of pages open in Dreamweaver — and still fly. I want applications to open quickly, images to load quickly and I want to be able to switch quickly from one application to another. At least that's my ideal.Options:
1. Memory. My mobo is DDR2 which is now very expensive with prices for 2x4gb being an eye-watering £250. But OC are selling Kingston HyperX 2x2GB for a more reasonable £60, giving me 6GB in total. Is this enough for my requirements, with W7? I could buy a second pair to replace my existing pair giving me 8GB for £120. Not sure it would be worth the extra though.
2. SSD. They've become cheap and it would be very tempting to buy one for the OS partition. I'm currently using RAID0 for speed on my two 500gb SATA drives, but I'm tempted to switch to RAID1, especially as my disks are a few years old now. Would the extra speed of the SSD make up for the loss in speed in switching to RAID 1?
3. New mobo + CPU + RAM. I think this would cost more than I'm prepared to spend right now. But it would allow me to buy cheaper, faster DDR3 memory (is 16GB overkill?) but I don't know how much benefit I would get for my requirements.
To summarise:
1. Is 6GB enough memory?
2. Should I buy an SSD and/or switch from RAID0 to RAID1?
3. Is it worth upgrading my mobo?
Any thoughts gratefully received.
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