Christmas time means ugrades!

With Christmas day looming, I am looking at potential upgrades for my PC. I've not been paying much attention to current components and the like so I am a bit out of touch with what's good and what's not.

I'm thinking graphics card and RAM upgrades, and possibly a new hard drive.

I was thinking of an ATI HD4850 for graphics as they're relatively cheap and I've heard that they're good cards. RAM, just gonna get 4x 1GB sticks of DDR2 but again I'm not sure what's good or not. Hard Drive I'm just thinking of going for a 640GB drive, double what I've got already.

Also, I am aware that if I increase RAM I'm going to need to go for a 64 bit OS, and to put it simply, is Windows 7 worth it? How much better than Vista is it?

Also, if anyone has any suggesyed changes to anything I am thinking of investing in could you please let me know. :)

Thanks

Nick

From my limited experience, Windows 7 feels pretty smooth, but then I haven't used Vista very much. I think the main problem with Vista has always been running it on inadequate hardware, especially on laptops.

How long term an upgrade are you going for? I suppose it depends on what you want to play, and for how long you'd like to leave it before upgrading again.

Take it your on a 1440x900 resolution? If so then a HD48850 is good now but you might want to look at getting a 512Mb HD4870 as it shouldnt be that much more.

EDIT: typed in the wrong card

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cheapy

Take it your on a 1440x900 resolution? If so then a HD48850 is good now but you might want to look at getting a 512Mb HD5870 as it shouldnt be that much more.

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I assume you meant 4870 as 5870's are quite a bit more and dont come in 512MB flavours.

Question is, why do you feel like you need an upgrade? If it's for gaming I can see where you're coming from, but 2GB RAM and an E7300 with XP is very good. However, you mentioned Vista in your first post so I'm guessing you might be using Vista. It's a shame you have 4x 512mb, if it was 2x 1GB it would have been easy to upgrade.

If it's for gaming specifically then 4GB of RAM, any 64 bit OS as well as a 4850/4870/4890 will be a worthwhile upgrade. I'd say the graphic card is the most important for gaming anyway.

Thanks Terbinator iv gone and changed it now. Never type when half asleep :p

GPU - HD5750 - Advantage over the HD4850 is DX11. Will also give you a bit of headroom if you get a new monitor. I would actually ideally recomend the HD5770 tbqh but its a little more expensive.
HDD - Samsung F3 500GB - Single platter drive very quick and quiet as well as cheap
RAM - 2 x 2GB PC8500

Iv been using 7 for a while now and its great. Would definately recomend it :)

tough call, depends on how much you can get a 4850 for, they were around £65 however they are far fewer about now and you'll need to watch out for the cooling as the original stock cooler was pretty pants.
However now a 4870 512mb is only around £90 so that would be a better bet.
If you're on a 19" 1440x900 or 1280x1024 then an thing much higher than a 4850 is going to be overkill currently.

Also a simular situation with the ram, 4x512mb is a pain as it would mean replacing all of it and ram prices are still a bit high atm
At the same time 2gb total is still a workable amount.

Vista to w7 is another tough choise, if it was xp I'd say go for it, even if you just stick with your 32it vista (I assume you've got the 32bit version) then you'll still end up with around 3gb of usable memory.
If you where looking at a 1gb graphics card + 4gb of memory then I'd definately recomend swapping to a 64bit OS

Also going to w7 I'd consider a 5770 or waiting for the new nvidia cards in the new year.

Sorry, I'm running XP on this machine but I know Vista as it's what runs on my laptop just to clarify.

I'm prepared to wait for a bit aswell if it means I can get better hardware for a cheaper price in the near future. I like the suggestions made aswell, thanks guys. :)

Ok let's start off, overclock that cpu ;) If you've not got an aftermarket cooler getting one would be a good first upgrade.
You should be able to hit 3ghz without any issues or voltage increases :)

Next 4x1gb of pc2-6400 and windows 7 64bit version.
Although 2x2gb may well be cheaper and you could always keep hold of 2x512 for an extra gb
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-(...d-CAS-5-5-5-15
If you don't mind 2nd hand then 4x1gb maybe a better cheaper option to look for. I got 4x1gb of ocz reaper for £35 back in the summer from fleabay.

I'd also consider maybe getting a new monitor as well.

Already got it overclocked to 3ghz. ;)