Tiny Dilemma...

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battletoad

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Got paid, i want to do a little upgrading. Budget is R2500.

At the mo I have x440, single 2GB ram stick on MN-68T board. The system's a bit unresponsive, largely due to my OS HDD being a(n oldish) 250gb IDE. Need a proper gfx card, hdd and whatever else I can add.

Which would best fit my needs:
1.) 5770, 2GB stick of ram for dual channel, 500GB sata.
2.) gtx460 768mb, 500GB hdd (R180 over budget but ok)
3.) 5770, Kingston 30GB SSD

Not really worried about storage space, more responsiveness. For gaming, mostly SC2 at 1680x1050 plus maybe some ps2 emulation. And any feedback on the kingston ssd would be appreciated.
 
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I'm looking at these esquire specials, maybe can squeeze out some cash for an extra drive for raid 0:D
 
I would rather use that extra money you squeezed for a better vga card or put it towards something else because raid is not worth the extra dosh if you are limited.
 
battletoad said:
The system's a bit unresponsive, largely due to my OS HDD being a(n oldish) 250gb IDE.
Click to expand...

Exactly what brand and model drive do you have? Upgrading to a new drive might not make a huge difference.
 
killa: will see tomorrow what the specials are. As always, gfx first then toss up between hdd and ram.

ponder: the drive's over four years old, western digital, not sure the part number and it tends to make a heck of a lot of noise (not clicking, not there yet). Thing is, the system's not as responsive as it should be. As the ram and the cpu is new (altho not top of the range), i can only conclude the hdd slows the system down a bit. Also, once an app launches, it flies...the launching is the problem however. This is on W7 and to a lesser extent XP

tx
 
ponder said:
Exactly what brand and model drive do you have? Upgrading to a new drive might not make a huge difference.
Click to expand...

Are you sure about that? IDE drive you realize that right :eek:

Change that hdd ASAP man. Launching will be a problem on majority of hdd's.
 
Nothing wrong with it being an IDE drive. I had a Seagate 250GB IDE that was better than my 320GB Western Digital SATA as an OS drive
 
killadoob said:
Are you sure about that? IDE drive you realize that right :eek:
Click to expand...

A few factors at play here. PATA & SATA 1.0 run at the same speeds. If you have a new MB that supports SATA 2.0 & a SATA 2.0 drive then you cn burst to almost 2x PATA speeds, if the MB & Drive don't match you are going to get the same speeds as PATA though.

IDE does not define the interface type. PATA & SATA are both interface types on IDE drives. If I read IDE drive to me it means it could be PATA or SATA.
 
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To clear up the confusion its PATA then. AM3 board so SATA2 is available. Put this system together in May with the eye on moving over to bulldozer (and then upgrading to the max) in the best case scenario and not being too worried if I can't move over in worst case scenario since the system was dirt cheap. I love the options an AMD solution brings:)

Now if only i made it to Esquire this morning... :(
 
So running windows 7 on pata is about the same as sata?

Hmmm i have a ide drive somewhere i must test this theory :D.
 
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