Major Upgrade. 3 components at once

[lokster]

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guys im going to upgrade a computer soon im going to buy the parts this week,

ive got an Asus p5gpl-x motherboard with pentium 4 2.8ghz processor and currently 512mb ram and 40gb hard drive with an old ATI Radeon X300 128mb PCIE x16.

im going to upgrade

1. Video Card to a Palit HD 2600 Pro 256MB x16 PCIE
2. Hard Drive SATA 160Gb 7200RPM Hitachi
3. DDR400 2GB 184pin PC3200 (2x1GB sticks)

the thing is what i want to do is WHICH ONE should i upgrade first?

i would like to replace the Hard drive totally, since im going to use the 40gb as an external drive.

soo should i install the Hard drive first? RAM then video card? or
Ram first then video card then hard drive? im quite confused as to how il go about this.

this is my first time upgrading and messing with a desktop. it'l be a miracle if i can upgrade all three parts with no problems. any help would be appreciated.

also im sure about the power management already, 300PSU is just enough to keep the whole system running.

[yugi]

My suggestion:

To tell you honestly, gikan ko sa imo situation pero mas grabe akong experience mao na pugos kog upgrade I was using the old DDR400 and AGP and AMD socket 754 that time, then when upgraded my monitor into 19 inches LCD my videocard FX550256/128 PALIT is very incompatible sa akong monitor I replaced 3-4 times ang videocard pero same prob ra gihapon, I tried my new monitor to different PC including the new PC's from the store wala jud problema so I concluded incompatible ang duha I experienced a lot of waist of time ug balik balik sa store pa test etc...and money of course pero it didnt solved the problem.

What I did I UPGRADED to new PC, from HDD, mobo, memory etc..then the problem is solved. I am telling you this because its better to upgrade a new PC rather than buying a new hardware parts but some old model like you said about DDR400. Imagine lang imo PC nga maski mo upgrade kag DDR400 2GB you cannot compete w/ the new DDR2 or DDR3 etc..

Think it over before you buy, thats a suggestion i hope it helps.

[lokster]

@ yugi ok im sorry to hear about your trouble, but the reason ive chosen to upgrade only parts and not a new computer is because.

1. the processor and motherboard are still good, p4 2.8ghz and LGA 775 socket with a PCIE x16 expansion isnt that old, it maybe 2 years old but with the upgrades it can last another 2 years.

2. your AGP interface with the video card is quite old and ive heard only bad things about the geforce AGP expansions. thats why im going with ATI and PCIE x16

3. as for the DDR 400 Ram, sure its not as fast as the DDR2 but really do u notice a difference between DDR 2gb and DDR2 2gb? i dont think so, and if there was a difference it would be really unnoticable.

these three upgrade will cost me only 7000Php, much cheaper than getting a new computer.

really i think what you tried to upgrade is really old especially with the video card.

nowadays i think many numbers in technology are overrated. do you really maximize your dual core use?

my 2 cents, im sure with everyday use you couldnt tell the difference between p4 and dual core

[vashtinone]

dako gyd ang difference sa DDR 2gb og DDR2 2gb bro.. dli kaau ko ka explain but i suggest u ask google.. gudluck!!

[darkdevil]

sa hardisk kay 320gb Samsung SATA..add lang ka og 600 or 700
pero you get 2times the size sa imo gi pick

[lokster]

sa hardisk kay 320gb Samsung SATA..add lang ka og 600 or 700
pero you get 2times the size sa imo gi pick

thanks bro i think il do that, but i dont need so much. maybe 250gb will do

dako gyd ang difference sa DDR 2gb og DDR2 2gb bro.. dli kaau ko ka explain but i suggest u ask google.. gudluck!!

is there a noticable difference when your using a computer of the DDR and DDR2?
anyways most games just require ram, regardless of the speed, and 2gb is well above what most require

[vashtinone]

@lokster
naa gyd bro, anha na nimu usually mabantayan wen loading applications or games, speed makes also the difference jst compare PC400 amd PC667, google it around..
get also the idea some our fellow istoryans for additional info..

[Envy 64Ht]

1. Video Card to a Palit HD 2600 Pro 256MB x16 PCIE
2. Hard Drive SATA 160Gb 7200RPM Hitachi
3. DDR400 2GB 184pin PC3200 (2x1GB sticks)

the thing is what i want to do is WHICH ONE should i upgrade first?

i suggest you get the memory first, its a big leap from your 512mb ram. since availability of DDRs are hard to catch. if you do casual computing and have massive file collections, HDD will be a good second option, since they come in huge capacities at lower prices nowadays. video cards can wait, assuming u don't play much.

[erwin_rommel]

@ yugi ok im sorry to hear about your trouble, but the reason ive chosen to upgrade only parts and not a new computer is because.

1. the processor and motherboard are still good, p4 2.8ghz and LGA 775 socket with a PCIE x16 expansion isnt that old, it maybe 2 years old but with the upgrades it can last another 2 years.

2. your AGP interface with the video card is quite old and ive heard only bad things about the geforce AGP expansions. thats why im going with ATI and PCIE x16

3. as for the DDR 400 Ram, sure its not as fast as the DDR2 but really do u notice a difference between DDR 2gb and DDR2 2gb? i dont think so, and if there was a difference it would be really unnoticable.

these three upgrade will cost me only 7000Php, much cheaper than getting a new computer.

really i think what you tried to upgrade is really old especially with the video card.

nowadays i think many numbers in technology are overrated. do you really maximize your dual core use?

my 2 cents, im sure with everyday use you couldnt tell the difference between p4 and dual core

you can hardly see the difference between a p4 and a pdc or c2d if you are still in the windows environment but once youre in applications or games, the difference is very noticeable. upgrades now a days are really not worth and its better to buy a new mobo, processor and ram. but you can always sell your old mobo, processor and ram here and buy a brandnew mobo, processor, ram with a budget of 7k

[lokster]

i think il install the ram first and see if it works, then install the video card and see if that works then probably install the hard drive since i wont be using the older 40gb hard drive

Im planning to play bioshock and gears of war and devil may cry 4. the videocard can handle all these new games pretty well. and meets the minimum requirements in terms of processing speed. so the video card is quite important here.

as for buying a new computer, it takes time to sell a computer and really i dont see the point in upgrading every year, this computer maybe 2 years old but it still works like a charm, upgrading it will make it run for another two years, and if the processor gets slow then il upgrade that too, F.Y.I my mobo has LGA 775 and some dual cores can fit in it, why spend another 3-5k on a motherboard and case?

also people are highly overrating the processor, its really windows and the OS that allocates memory and what not for applications, if you use vista, superfetch is a great allocation program that manages memory well and can open photoshop in 4-6 seconds flat! i bet if XP had such allocation it could do better.