dirtwarrior Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 My computer is dated but still runs good on everything but demanding video conversions. It can use 1 gb of either ddr 3200 or sdram. ATM I have 1 gb of sdram. What will give me the best bang for my buck? Going to a newer faster HD (it now has a samsung 120 gb 5200 speed with a 2 mb buffer) with a bigger buffer and faster, or going to 1 gb of 3200 ddr? Both will cost about the same. I intend to do both but for now which should I do first?DW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puntoMX Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 No doubt about it: Go for a new HDD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bledd Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 No doubt about it: Go for a new HDD.yup, you'll massive a huge speed increase!get a western digital 8mb cache drive, i'm assuming your board doesn't have SATA becuase its got sdram in it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zxian Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 Definately the larger hard drive. 1GB is plenty of RAM for most systems (and considering that you tweak your system like mad to have as low RAM-useage as possible).7200RPM and 8MB or 16MB will do WONDERS for your speed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcarle Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 I vote high density, high speed hard drive.It will change your computer from night to day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Soul Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 youll definatly get a great change with a new hd, i agree with every one when they suggest a new hd, by getting a new hd with a high read and write speed, will always turn a pc into a happy pc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirtwarrior Posted December 4, 2006 Author Share Posted December 4, 2006 The new HD it is. Later I will get the ram. Then when this box wears out, I will build another system and this will go into it along with another gb of ram.My 120 runs out of room. I am considering a 300 gb is this a decent size? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Soul Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 The new HD it is. Later I will get the ram. Then when this box wears out, I will build another system and this will go into it along with another gb of ram.My 120 runs out of room. I am considering a 300 gb is this a decent size?yes its a very nice size, you should be able to get a nice affordable 300gb at newegg.com,, for a great dealjust make sure your new hd, dosnt turn at 5400 rpm,, stick with a 7200 on a minimum if you can , of course if your mobo can handle it sata is always nice, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zxian Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 Honestly - if you're running SDRAM, forget about upgrading. It'll be way too expensive, and you're better off saving up for a newer system.300GB 7200RPM will be plenty for you. You can always use the 120GB HD for storage from now on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcarle Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 Western Digital 320GB are the sweet spot between size/price right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaqie Fox Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 (edited) Actually jcarle, I am going to have to disagree with you on this one issue.My brand new 7200.10 has serious speed... and it is for sale for under $100 at the egg right now. Here are some tests I ran on it.Please note the drive is on a sata1 port and that it is my OS drive so downspikes in speed are probably the OS accessing it.~edit~ the test shot has the model number, and by what I read their PATA version is just as fast as this one. Edited December 4, 2006 by Jaqie Fox Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puntoMX Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 Read / Write specs are not the only thing to take a look at...Check the I/O / CPU usage too when it comes to an older system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaqie Fox Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 (edited) CPU usage is actually more controller/driver based then HDD based.Note the test shows CPU usage, seek times, and such on it. the dot map is a seek map.~~And I definitely agree that transfer rates are nowhere near the only thing to look at when buying a HDD. Edited December 4, 2006 by Jaqie Fox Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcarle Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 I dislike Seagate hard drive for their noise levels. Don't get me wrong, they're good hard drive, high quality and impressive performance at times. But the noise levels are higher and the real world difference between a WD 320 and a Seagate 320 are marginal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaqie Fox Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 I totally understand you there. The reason I switched back to seagate was WD playing the shuffle-the-warranty-period game. they burned me with that, bad enough im going to steer clear of WD for a while. My newest (remaining) WD is a WD2000BB I got when they were $100 new at the egg. You are right, they are quieter on average, but this particular drive seems just as 'loud' as my WD2000BB which is pretty quiet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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