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Geek Culture / Which one of these will improve game &computer performance?

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Person99
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Joined: 15th Dec 2005
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Posted: 11th Jun 2007 01:50
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Well, I have enough money to buy only one of two things that I know of:
1. Nvidia Geforce 6200 256mb
2. 1GB DDR ram

Here are my current computer specs:

AMD Sempron 2200+ (AGP support)
512mb DDR Ram (2 256mb sticks, my motherboard allows 2 max)
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (Frequently overclocks, which speeds it up)
20GB Hard-drive (Contains windows and programs)
20GB Hard drive (Contains programs)

So which one of the two would be a better buy?
If you know of something better for the same price, please mention it.

Who will die first?
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Phaelax
DBPro Master
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Location: Metropia
Posted: 11th Jun 2007 04:45
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Save your money and wait until you can buy a new system. An extra gig of ram would definately help things run smoother. And though the graphics card would considerably help your games, in my opinion it seems like a waste considering whats on the market now. And with the rest of your current specs, any game you run requiring a gfx card like that will likely lag anyway from the old cpu and lack of physical ram.


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Person99
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Posted: 11th Jun 2007 06:46 Edited at: 11th Jun 2007 06:48
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I don't plan to upgrade my system any more. I don't find newer games much fun at all, even if they have pretty graphics.
I just want to be able to play current-gen games well.

I asked Slashdot, and they told me to do Ram.
IGN told me also to do ram.
Gamespot told me to get a new GFX.
I have no idea what to do, but I think it will be Ram, due to my troubles with Nvidia drivers that caused me to give up a few days ago.

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Van B
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Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 11th Jun 2007 09:29
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You only have a 40gb hard disk? - I'd consider upgrading that and your memory before worrying about a new GFX card. A bigger and faster HDD would provide a noticable improvement in games. So with memory and HDD which can be got cheaply, you'd have faster loading and less page-file problems, and with more memory you'd have smoother gameplay and less slow-down.


Good guy, Good guy, Wan...
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Person99
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Posted: 11th Jun 2007 09:59 Edited at: 11th Jun 2007 10:05
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My brother is soon getting some 300Gb Hard drive. He is wiping his 160gb, and giving it to me. It will most likely need a defragment, but that is it.

My main problem is slow gameplay, often slows down, and the fact that clicking "My computer" in Windows or "Home" in Linux responds in about 15 seconds.

Edit: Found this at HyperTech:
"Western Digital Caviar 160GB 7200rpm SATA2 300 Hard Drive oem "

I understand "Western Digital 160GB 7200rpm Hard drive".
I am assuming that SATA2 300 is the model?

This is in my price range also. Would it end up doing me more then 1GB RAM?

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Chris K
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Posted: 11th Jun 2007 11:58
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You have a terrible, terrible processor.

-= Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals =-
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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Location: The Fifth Plane of Oblivion
Posted: 11th Jun 2007 17:59
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I'd go for the graphics card. The RAM is going to be next to useless without a better card or processor. I upgraded from a 5200 to a 6200 quite recently, and the speed boost with the same specs (nearly, I have a Barton core) was about 50-60%.


Since the other one was scaring you guys so much...
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John Y
Synergy Editor Developer
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Posted: 11th Jun 2007 18:56
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Quote: ""Western Digital Caviar 160GB 7200rpm SATA2 300 Hard Drive oem ""


SATA2 is the connection type, found on motherboards made in the last 2 years. Your motherboard may not support this type, although SATA should work albeit at a reduced speed.

More RAM no contest. Shiny graphics cards are only good when you want to play games. RAM speeds up the computer in all aspects.

Synergy IDE and Synergy Editor
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_read&i=29
Http://www.digitalzenith.net
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FredP
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Posted: 11th Jun 2007 21:31
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I have to agree.I just added 1 GB of RAM to my pc and the results are amazing.Turns out al lot of problems I thought were game related,application related,etc. were actually not enough RAM related.

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Satchmo
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Posted: 12th Jun 2007 15:00
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I have a stupid dell 30 gig drive.

I like my sig.
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GatorHex
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Posted: 12th Jun 2007 15:40 Edited at: 12th Jun 2007 15:43
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Like other people said sell the whole PC it on ebay and get a new one but

If I had to choose I'd choose the GPU, sell the old GPU one on ebay

then

buy the memory and sell the old memory on ebay.

You should make enough selling the old stuff to help pay for second upgrade

IMPORTANT When buying a 6200 make sure it's 128bit memory bandwidth there are cheap and slow 64bit ones out there!

DinoHunter http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=98385&b=8
CPU/GPU Benchmark http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=101716&b=5
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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 12th Jun 2007 20:02
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Game - Performance - Either - depends whats making it slow - Devil May Cry 3 didn't have much of a performance boost when I upgraded to 512mb RAM, whilst several others had a huge improvement - if your graphics card is a good performer - no need to upgrade that, but as you say 'upgrade to 1gb ram' I can see how some more ram would work on new games - but note if your GFX isn't quite up to work as well, you'll probably need both.
Computer App- RAM

I actually upgraded my graphics card first thinking it would reduce performance issues, but barely did - I could play Age of Empires 3 at a higher detail, and allowed mean to run things like Doom 3, Prey, Half Life and FarCry okay, but the ram upgrade...well I did that 2 weeks ago and I'm mighty happy - not the perfect performance increase as I'm sure you'll tell me, but from 256mb to 512mb .... it's exciting

Support the return of Cow-Fishing! Hook up Paris Hilton and die!
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Person99
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Posted: 12th Jun 2007 23:24 Edited at: 12th Jun 2007 23:33
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I just compared a Geforce 6200 128 bit and my ATI Radeon 9700 pro, and the website I used told me that the Radeon 9700 is the best.
I am doing it on 2 other sites, but it looks like the Geforce 6200 is going off of the list.
People at Filefront are also telling me that it is best to do the ram or hard-drive.

Quote: "I'm sure you'll tell me, but from 256mb to 512mb .... it's exciting"


I currently have 2 256mb sticks of DDR.
I am looking at 1 stick of 1gb DDR ram, which would bring me up to about 1.23 GB DDR.

The newest game I am playing is TES 4 - Oblivion.
It lags a bit, but the video on it looks great. There are no scratches or video errors, so it likes my video card enough to not mess up, like it does on my brother's Geforce 6600.
It does still lag a lot, however. It takes up 412MBs of ram during rain in the game (No fighting), leaving me barely any space to run my other programs, and eventually coming up with low memory errors.
The problem with Oblivion is probably low ram, unless a maybe-better GPU can make it take up less ram.

I have absolutely no problem with Doom 3, F.E.A.R has more trouble then Oblivion and Hitman put together, and Hitman 5 eats up my system.

Quote: "You have a terrible, terrible processor."

It does okay, but in the end, you are definitely right.

P.S, Sure, if I sold my PC and it's contents on E-bay, wouldn't that be like selling my only car so I can buy more gas?

Edit: All three comparison websites told me that the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro is better then the Geforce 6200. So I think that I'll stick with my current video card.

It is down to more ram or a new Hard-drive.

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