Upgrading in the best way...

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Hello, I'm coming into a bit of money soon and I'm looking at a few ways to upgrade my rig. It's relatively new but with nothing more important to spend my money on (lucky me) - I thought I'd pump some more of the hard earned into the machine.

Thing is, I'm not really sure where to go with it. I have:

Linksys 19" CRT (Considering LCD)

- What are these monitors like for gaming? I understand it's getting better all the time and I'd be looking to spend around £400-£500 on one, but I'm just weary of making that switch and having ghosting (etc) ruin the gaming experience.

Akasa Eclipse 62
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4Ghz)
Gigabyte DS4
ATI Radeon 512mb X1900XT* (soon to be a 8800)

- Really unsure whether to go GTS or GTX. How much of a difference is there? I will definitely be upgrading this.

Geil 2GB (2x1GB) 800Mhz (possibly double it to 4GB)

- I will be doing video editing on this, so I understand memory is important for that, but does it do much for gaming experience, outside of BF2?

Soundblaster X-FI Music
Microsoft Ergonomical Keyboard 4000 (better keyboard needed)

- Just a case of getting a better keyboard really. Simple enough.

Microsoft Optical Mouse

74GB Raptor (16mb) (considering getting another one and running RAID0)

I've gathered this is pretty loud - but is the performance increase (windows and games) worth it?

320GB WD (7,200rpm - 16mb)

Unfortunately I won't be able to get everything. But I've cut it down to those options and just need a second, third or even fourth opinion on them.

Thanks for any help.

 

[buachille]

- What are these monitors like for gaming? I understand it's getting better all the time and I'd be looking to spend around £400-£500 on one, but I'm just weary of making that switch and having ghosting (etc) ruin the gaming experience.

i have never had a crt. first i had a sony 17inch monitor, and now i have a dell 20 inch ultrasharp.

but i have never ever seen this ghosting. i don't even know what it looks like. i've never experienced anything with my tft's that i would call a negative thing.

although, if you a graphic artist then apparently crt's give better accurate colour reproduction (this only matters for people working with colour profiles, sending stuff to printers, etc).

 

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but i have never ever seen this ghosting. i don't even know what it looks like. i've never experienced anything with my tft's that i would call a negative thing.

The first I've really got to see of Ghosting is on the computers in college. Not very often, but now and again you can see it on Call of Duty 2.

Whether it's a resolution setting or lack of quality in the screen, I'm not sure, but they are powered by a (256mb) 7900GS. 'They' being 17" Dell Value Flat Panels.

 

[buachille]

looks like i've just been lucky then.

 

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Microsoft Ergonomical Keyboard 4000 (better keyboard needed)

Picked up a Logitech G15 and got a Razer Diamondback as well.

It's more of a hard drive forum question than general, but there's no point in a new thread - can you run two raptors in raid, even if the cache is different? (8mb & 16mb) or do they have to be identical?