[ Outline ] · Standard · Linear+ Broke and looking for a good deal., need to up my PC

[Pikaporeon]

alright. i am at the moment fairly broke... ive got abotu $40 Canadian to my name

Heres my PC:
AMD 1700+
256 MB DDR SDRAM
ATI Radion 9200 SE Atlantis 128 MB DDR
Sound Blaster 16 PCI

i obviously have more than that, but those are the generic detals. im fine for HD space and what not.


Now, thats beginning to look a bit dated in some ways (especially ram)

I was wondering
A: what should my prioritys be
B: say i need a new processor/ram/whatever what would be a good compromise between price and power
C: Also im running up the specs on my Mobo, il grab them in full later. Its an Asus. How fast a chip can i drop in it? (il get more info on my board later)





Thank you

[mcelb1200]

Well for a starters, if you want to stay with AMD I wouldn't bother upgrading just yet until socket 939 prices start to fall a little. As far as I know all socket 939 processors run dual channel DDR3200 ram so you're not going to be getting any real benefit out of buying ram suited to that purpose.

Despite this, considering you've already got 256 RAM, if it's good quality you could purchase an equivalent 256mb stick and try a moderate overclock. Also, you don't mention what core revision your CPU is. Anyways my suspicion is that you'll be running it at FSB333mhz and the AMDs can quite easily be upped to FSB400mhz without much trouble. If you've got an existing stick of PC3200 DDR, I'd just buy another one and try this. If not, consider buying either one stick of 512mb PC32000 (if you can find one with cas rating (2-2-2-5) that's perfect! - I think Corsair make some of these but they're pricey). and up your FSB to 400mhz.

You'll squeeze a little extra juice out of your system and probably not experience any negative side effects.

cheers :ph34r: