[Silvercast]

Tax refund! Yay!... Kindof :\

I just got all my taxes back, and beyond taking care of bills and such, I'll have about enough money to buy one more piece for my build. But I don't know what I want to get. I have 3 main pieces that need work.

- 80gb first generation SATA HDD with less than 80mbps transfer rate, and bad sectors.
- Zotac low profile graphics card, works, but not well enough to pound out heavy graphics games.
- RAM, the RAM I have was free with my motherboard, so I don't actually have the RAM I want

The upgrades would be as follows.

- 2 ADATA SSD's in a raid 0 configuration, with over 1gb transfer rate total
- Powercolor PCS+ HD7870 Myst edition with the tahiti LE GPU
- 16 gb 1866 Gskill Ripjaws

I know it seems like the HDD is the obvious choice, but... I just want some input.

 

[mxfreek09]

I personally would narrow it down between the SSD's and the GPU. The RAM can always wait since 8 GB should be plenty enough to handle most games. So then you have it down to the SSD and GPU, then it boils down the the questions: would you rather have quick data transfer rates, higher storage capacities, and quicker loading in Windows or Would you rather have a very nice current gen graphics cards that is going to handle new games at higher settings?

I think I would get the SSD's personally. That way you have the space and benefits of the quick ssd's and hold off on the gpu for now. I say this because with 80gb you might not have alot of room for the games. Also you will already have a gpu, even though its not anything spectacular it will get you guy in some games and allow you to have some fun while you save up for an awesome GPU. Thats just my two cents. Whatever decision you decide to make though is going to be a huge improvement so dont regret it either way.

 

[Silvercast]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mxfreek09

I personally would narrow it down between the SSD's and the GPU. The RAM can always wait since 8 GB should be plenty enough to handle most games. So then you have it down to the SSD and GPU, then it boils down the the questions: would you rather have quick data transfer rates, higher storage capacities, and quicker loading in Windows or Would you rather have a very nice current gen graphics cards that is going to handle new games at higher settings?

I think I would get the SSD's personally. That way you have the space and benefits of the quick ssd's and hold off on the gpu for now. I say this because with 80gb you might not have alot of room for the games. Also you will already have a gpu, even though its not anything spectacular it will get you guy in some games and allow you to have some fun while you save up for an awesome GPU. Thats just my two cents. Whatever decision you decide to make though is going to be a huge improvement so dont regret it either way.

I think I'm going to go with the SSD's. My graphics card is old, but it still runs stuff at mid graphics at near 100 fps. Just, near max graphics the framerates PLUMMIT, i'm talking, 2-3 fps. I can deal with the lower graphics, but my HDD is just not big enough. I have 50 GB in music for god sakes

 

[mxfreek09]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silvercast

I think I'm going to go with the SSD's. My graphics card is old, but it still runs stuff at mid graphics at near 100 fps. Just, near max graphics the framerates PLUMMIT, i'm talking, 2-3 fps. I can deal with the lower graphics, but my HDD is just not big enough. I have 50 GB in music for god sakes

If your willing to sacrifice a few frame rates for now I think you are going to be really happy with the ssd's. I mean ultimately its up to you what you do. I would have suggested the GPU over the SSD's if you had something around 200+ gb to use. But you end up being so limited with 80 gb that if you were to get that 7870 you might run out of room for your games and not be able to enjoy them. Best of luck with the upgrades though.

 

[Silvercast]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mxfreek09

If your willing to sacrifice a few frame rates for now I think you are going to be really happy with the ssd's. I mean ultimately its up to you what you do. I would have suggested the GPU over the SSD's if you had something around 200+ gb to use. But you end up being so limited with 80 gb that if you were to get that 7870 you might run out of room for your games and not be able to enjoy them. Best of luck with the upgrades though.

I have a 1tb external if worst comes to worst, however... the external doesn't have 1gb of transfer speed o_o