If you had my PC and $75.

N

NeedaComputer

Member
Simply put, I have a VISA gift card worth $75. My computer is outlined in the signature. How could I best improve my computing performance? Games and DVD compression are my priorities.

I just started playing Rappelz and I have everything on high @ 1440x900, except for this "Blossom Effect" which makes everything appear kind of hazy and more realistic. With this off, game runs just fine.

As far as DVD compression. Encoding bit for bit takes about 30 min. Compressing from 8gb down to 4gb takes over an hour, maybe hour and a half.

-Could get Athlon X2 for around $75.
-Could get 2 more 512 sticks for ~$100?
-Or better graphics card, (Wouldn't mind suggestions here, I haven't kept up on my homework since I built this PC a year and a half ago.)

Thanks for any and all comments/suggestions.
 
Good ones are pretty expensive these days. If there was a card that was a significant improvement for ~$100, I'd probably investigate it.
 
why only get to more 512mb sticks?
if your pc can take 2gb per slot and if you have a 64bit os, you could get 4gb (2x2gb) for as low as $80. add it to the current gb and you'll have 5gb of ram.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010170147+1052315794&name=4GB(2+x+2GB)

or if you don't have a 64bit os or if the motherboard can't handle 2gb per slot, you could just get 2x 1gb sticks for as low as $36 for a total of 3gb in the pc.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010170147+1052308477&name=2GB+(2+x+1GB)

chances are that with the 1gb of ram you have now, its holding back your system. up the ram and your fps in games will go up, and the pc will definitely encode/compress video a lot faster due to having a lot more free ram to store the data instead of needing to use a page file as much.
 
[-0MEGA-];846296 said:
Are you actually 25?

Anyways, I would go with a better video card.
Click to expand...

Yes, I am 25. Is that bad or good?

What is the difference between 7 series and 8 series nVidia? (7600GT & 8600GT)

I like the idea of a slightly better graphics card and some 2gb ram sticks. If they are all the same speed, can I run 2x512mb and 2x1gb for 3gb of ram? I thought I read that with the motherboard that I have, it's best to only use 2 of the slots for the fastest ram? Rather, I think the argument went something like this, 2 x 1gb is faster than 4 x 512mb.

I suppose if they're all the same speed, more ram the better.

[oscaryu1] said:
That's a good card, but your RAM is still rather low... (You're not running Vista, right?)
Click to expand...
No, I am running XP on the 500gb, and Ubuntu on the 250gb.
 
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