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Posted: 12/22/2005 2:58:02 PM EDT
[#1]
A video card would be the first thing.
What kind of slots do you have to put a video card in? Unless you want to play games what you have may be ok... Dennis Jenkins
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Posted: 12/22/2005 3:00:09 PM EDT
[#2]
depends on what you use it for. for example, in your case (assume gaming) you'll need a good video card, then more RAM for office type work, excel, word, etc you'll probably seen a pretty good boost in performance with only buying more RAM, at least 1 Gig. all of this is assuming you have plenty of room on your HD available, you can't install anything if there's no space  also, defragging your HD at least every two weeks will also improve performance and doesn't cost anything |
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Posted: 12/22/2005 3:00:32 PM EDT
[#3]
VC if you game heavily or dont like the quality of movies you watch,otherwise, RAM, unless your hdd is full!
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Posted: 12/22/2005 3:00:51 PM EDT
[#4]
Depends on your motherboard. More ram is the best bet, then the video card. You'll want both for modern gaming, although if you want to check out some older but classic titles first (Max Payne and the ilk) it isn't as crucial. You'll enjoy everything more with more ram and video capability, though.
For around 300, you can put together a brand spankin' new motherboard (asus), 64 bit amd processor, and gig of DDR. |
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Posted: 12/22/2005 3:03:13 PM EDT
[#5]
What do you want it to do? What do you want it to do better than it does right now? |
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Posted: 12/22/2005 3:03:47 PM EDT
[#6]
Sounding like a broken record... it depends on what you use it for.
You have a decent proc, OK amount of RAM, but onboard video usually sucks balls. For office type stuff, the video probably doesn't matter much. More RAM can help, IF you're using enough system resources to be using all/most of the RAM you already have. Your computer will not magically get faster from adding RAM unless you're using all of the RAM you actually have. RAM is like your desk. If you have a ton of shit on it, you get a bigger desk (add RAM), and you can now have more stuff on your desk at the same time. Having a huge desk and just a couple things on it is a waste. |
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Posted: 12/22/2005 3:05:36 PM EDT
[#7]
All true, but more RAM does make almost everything better, from running larger applications to saving big files. Video cards are important only for gaming / sending video to your TV / watching DVDs. |
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Posted: 12/22/2005 3:14:43 PM EDT
[#8]
1. Video
2. Memory 3. HD (move up to second if hard drive space is tight) |
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Posted: 12/22/2005 3:30:15 PM EDT
[#9]
With current versions of Windows, the "sweet spot" for ram is 1 gig. Up to 1 gig, adding memory can make a noticeable difference in performance. The difference is amplified if you replace slower memory with faster memory, IF the motherboard will actually run the memory at the faster speed. Above 1 gig, for the applications I use (office software through programming and scientific computing) the improvement levels off very quickly. By this I mean that moving from 512 megs to 1 gig is a much more pronounced effect than moving from 1 to 1.5 gigs. I don't know whether this guideline applies to Win64 on 64 bit systems. Jim |
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Posted: 12/22/2005 3:36:22 PM EDT
[#10]
I'll echo someone... VIDEO upgrade that ASAP. Next, memory. bump it up to 1GB - will be enough for a while.
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Posted: 12/22/2005 3:40:33 PM EDT
[#11]
+1 on the video card, then 1 gig of memory
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Posted: 12/22/2005 3:43:15 PM EDT
[#12]
Get all three
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Posted: 12/22/2005 3:44:06 PM EDT
[#13]
They still sell pc's with less than 1gb ram? Dude, you need more ram. It's cheap and will be the best upgrade you can make for overall performance.
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Posted: 12/22/2005 3:46:50 PM EDT
[#14]
Ram
Taffy |
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Posted: 12/22/2005 3:50:39 PM EDT
[#15]
Gaming like EIB/cod.
I thought video also as the video does not have to write to the Hdd as much. I'll wait for the after holiday specials  Merry Christmas to ALLLLL |
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Posted: 12/22/2005 3:54:50 PM EDT
[#16]
User training.
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Posted: 12/22/2005 4:10:02 PM EDT
[#17]
Games: Video card, definately, followed by another 256-512mb of RAM The 'onboard' video that you get with a typical PC is worthless for anything but web & office use... That system will run pretty much anything out today, IF you put enough video card in there (256mb nVidia or ATI)... Further, crap video (ala onboard) will bottleneck you faster than 512mb vs 1GB RAM.... Your hard disk DOES NOT affect the speed of your system in any meaningful way (unless we're talking network servers, etc), so don't touch that untill it's full... Office/Internet There's not much that will make this stuff go 'faster', as it RARELY uses anywhere near the full potential of your system... Internet speed is 100% controlled by your connection (which is why I find the CPU & system companies advertizing 'faster internet experience' comical).... |
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Posted: 12/22/2005 4:40:57 PM EDT
[#18]
What is (if anything) this computer NOT doing that you would like it to do?
The people who are telling you that adding RAM is some kind of magic hop up are sadly mistaken. However by taking the video load away from the main system and giving almost all of that job to a video card you are in affect "adding RAM" because the memory that is used now for the onboard video will be freed up for other things. So in answer to your question replacing the video card is your top priority. |
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Posted: 12/22/2005 5:16:14 PM EDT
[#19]
Thats not true. A HD is an essential part for high performance because windows uses virtual memory. Adding more ram reduces the amount of virtual memory used, which is why ram upgrades greatly improve performance. However, no matter how much ram is added windows will still use virtual memory and thus still relys on the performance (or lack of) of your HD  ETA As as example, a simple "upgrade" to drastically improve the performance and responsiveness of any computer that has been used for awhile is to simply format the HD and reinstall the OS. It gets rid of all of the HD fragmentation, bloatware, and screwed up registry. |
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Posted: 12/22/2005 5:27:41 PM EDT
[#20]
My suggestions in order of priority: 1) nVidia 6600GT based video card (~$120) 2) extra 512MB ram (~$50) |
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Posted: 12/22/2005 5:57:17 PM EDT
[#21]
More Ram then a Video card and a SATA HD
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