what shall i get to treat myself? advice needed please

bananaman · 13 Mar 2006 at 09:34

Well i have just got a bonus at work and wanted to get something as a "well done" to myself so I was wondering what to get.

My Specs at present are:

Athlon 64 3700+ overclocked
MSI SLI Platinum mobo
2 x 7200rpm 8mb cache HDDs (not raided, maxtor and a spinpoint)
x1900xt
1GB Corsair 3200XL
600W OCZ PSU
All watercooled
fpw2004

I was thinking of getting a 150GB Raptor to run windows and games and use the other 2 HDD as storage units. I was wondering whether this would make much of a difference to my system, which is kept relatively "neat and tidy" and quite quick.

but then I wondered about upgrading my RAM to 2GB might give me a better performance boost, although i mostly play HL2 based games such as DoD:S (not BF2), so given that I will probably get a Conroe or a new Athlon I will be getting DDR2 memory relatively soon, so long term I may not get much use out of a 2 gig set

Can anyone suggest anything else that would help

My main criteria are: £ to performance ratio;and life of product (not until failure but for how long it will remain a good performance part.

Any help would be most appreciated

GAMEfreak · 13 Mar 2006 at 09:40

only thing i can think of is an XT crossfire card.

Bobmunkhouse · 13 Mar 2006 at 09:41

I would say a nice big widescreen LCD like the new NCR 20 inch widescreen.

ACESHIGH · 13 Mar 2006 at 10:04

Dual core --

X2 4400+
X2 4800+
Opteron 165
Opteron 170

bananaman · 13 Mar 2006 at 10:08

GAMEfreak said:
only thing i can think of is an XT crossfire card.

oooh, dont tempt me, but that would mean new mobo too so wont go there for now

Bobmunkhouse said:
I would say a nice big widescreen LCD like the new NCR 20 inch widescreen.

I already have a 24" WS Dell

ANn regarding Dual Core I am thinking that my current CPU will get me through pretty well until mid this year when Conroe comes out

does this mean that it looks like the Raptor is the best option?

semi-pro waster · 13 Mar 2006 at 10:17

I'd probably suggest the Raptor for the simple reason it is the fastest non-SCSI drive out there right now and you can easily transplant it into your new system when the time comes. That said it is pricey for what it is, considering your can get probably 80-90% of the performance and about double the space with cheaper drives but if you feel you have to spend the money go for it