Upgrading

I am looking to upgrade, but am unsure what products to get.

I want to upgrade my 512 MB Ram to 1024Ram. (DDR)
I know how to do this, just what ram would you recommend?

I am upgrading hard drive but am pretty sure i will go with maxtor.

What else could I upgrade. I have a msi ms 6382 motherboard and an amd processor.

Any ideas? Any help welcome.

 

i have 2 sticks st the moment 2x 256 = 512mb

 

up 2 two sticks of ram, i have amd athlon xp 2000+ (1.67ghz) and video card = nvidia gforce 4 mx 420

 

The video card is most likely 64MB and PCI. If you're going to be gaming on this machine you really need to grab a video card. If your board has AGP, which I'm sure it does, then grab a descently priced video card.

 

Yeah, with that old G4 chipset even being AGP isn't going to help him.

If he's planning on gaming, I'd definitely go with a new video card. Also, If you have the money and don't want to go to to overboard, I'd grab another processor too. 2000+ isn't bad, but it's really going to hold you back in gaming, especially if you get a nice video card and wonder why the frame rates aren't as high as others with the same video card... Prcoessor can't dish out the info fast enough.

I'm looking at it completely from a gaming standpoint, though. If you plan on doing very little gaming or no gaming at all, I'd stick with your current video card and processor. Albeit, if you're planning on Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 you really need another video card and while that processor will probably get you by I'd really recommend a new one... for the sake of gaming at least.

 

The thing with these specs are that they're [bold]bare minimum[/bold]. I dare someone to play Doom 3 with those specs and try to play it at any descent looking graphic level.

My other PC is an Athlon 2000+ (Palomino) with 512MB PC 2700ram. It has a Geforce 2 64MB video card. This is very similar to his in most respects except for the video card. This game absolutely CRAWLS even on the lowest setting. I doubt having the cheapest Geforce 4 chipset available and being 4xAGP is going to change things much.

I've also tried this on variable machines and another to mention is a P4 2.4 GHz. FX5200 Ulta with 384MB Ram. Unplayable.

It really just depends on how your gaming experiences have been. People that are used to having lag may not mind it much. 15FPS in good spots and dropping to 1-2FPS isn't my idea of a pleasant gaming experience.

If he tries to play Doom 3 even on the lowest settings with those specs (even with a GB of ram) he'll be playing frame by frame. It MIGHT be playable, but I'm willing to wager when you get into a gun fight in a highly lit area or an area that pushes your video card the fights will drop to possibly 0FPS and you'll be waiting for your video card to catch up.

I'm not saying he won't be able to play the game with those specs, I'm just saying it won't be fun. Even if he does manage to disable all graphical features the spirit of Doom 3 will be ruined as it's a highly horror based game that does it's scaring based on shadows and things popping in and out of the darkness. It would ruin the ambience of the game and look similar to play pac-man.

 

thanks guys. So, what hardware would you recommend? any processor in mind, and a video card, which one?

 

and you talk about BIOS on MSI - what exactly does this mean?