Next upgrade?

[ae86trueno]

<computer specs in my profile>
I got a gift card to frys electronics and i'm trying to spend it. My budget is 125 dollars. I mainly use my computer for gaming and other than gaming just browsing the web. So, i'm trying to decide whether i would benefit more from a new processor or more ram (or anything else). Thanks!

PS i got a new HDD for xmas so i don't need any more memory at the moment.

 

[Tmagic650]

A Hard Drive can be considered for system virtual memory, but it does not take the place of System RAM (Random Access Memory). You list your system memory at 2GB. The max System Memory may be 4 or 8GB. Your hard drives capacity is much larger... $125 is not enough for a "better" CPU or video card. You could max out the motherboards memory (a new hard drive didn't affect this memory amount) or buy a new PC game, or two

 

[captaincranky]

His board; http://www.evga.com/articles/329.asp has 2 PCI-E x 16 lanes (SLI). Would that support another one of the same Video cards that he already has in "crossfire"? The board does have 4 memory sockets, and 2GB (existing) is considered minimum for Win 7 64 bit. A matching kit of 2 X1GB maybe?

Being the devils advocate that I am , I'd probably try to sell the gift card @ .80 cents on the dollar and order from Newegg.

Although Frys is supposed to have good deals if you're patient. can't speak to it from experience though, there isn't one within 1500 miles (at least) of me.

 

[red1776]

I agree with Cap, if you use it for gaming, for $100 you can add another 4850. that will give you a huge boost in gaming. throw another $25 in the pot and get another 2gb of matching ram as well.

 

[dividebyzero]

Before you go out blowing your wad on another HD 4850....Your board supports SLI only (only nVidia graphics cards). Having owned this board (well, the A1 version) I can tell you that they have massive potential. Unlike Intel chipset boards your board supports unlinked RAM bandwidth (speed). No FSB/RAM speed divider. Adding another 2Gb of RAM (or selling the 2Gb you have and buying a 2x2Gb set) and running it at a higher bandwidth at the same timings will give you a large increase in performance across the board.
Because the RAM is unlinked you can keep the CPU stock or overclock it independently of the RAM. This in turn keeps your MCH (northbridge) voltage low, which keeps temps down, and the RAM voltage low

For instance, I ran
4Gb of Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 (4-4-4-12) at DDR2-1150 (5-5-5-15) at a stock 2.0volts. Without changing CPU speed I was able to drop almost 2 seconds off the SuperPi benchmark (calculated to 1 million places)

With the rest of the cash-put it towards a HD 5770.

 

[ae86trueno]

A Hard Drive can be considered for system virtual memory, but it does not take the place of System RAM (Random Access Memory). You list your system memory at 2GB. The max System Memory may be 4 or 8GB. Your hard drives capacity is much larger... $125 is not enough for a "better" CPU or video card. You could max out the motherboards memory (a new hard drive didn't affect this memory amount) or buy a new PC game, or two

no no no, i mentioned i got a hard drive for xmas because i didnt want ya'll to recommend more hard drive space as my next upgrade lol.
I'll definately consider selling my ram like divide by zero said, but i think im going to hold off on upgrading right now as i seem to be having some issues with my windows explorer crashing my computer (but that will be another thread) thanks guys!