Little(ish) Upgrade!

[Haiku32]

New year, new hardware! Looking to upgrade my graphics card and RAM, as well as getting another hard drive. Budget is £250, if I can keep it under that then good, but will go a little over if it is worth it.

Current graphics card is XFX 8800 GTS 640mb, looking to upgrade it to HD4890 maybe? Currently have 2GB of RAM, want 4GB. Another 500GB - 1TB drive would do. I'm currently looking at:

GPU - XFX HD4890 1GB £147.44
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-X...VI-I-HDTV-HDCP

RAM - Corsair 2 x 2GB £71.50
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-%...S-5-6-6-18-EPP

Hard Drive - 500GB Western Digital £35.77
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500-G...MB-Cache-89-ms
Total - £254.71

A teeny bit over budget, but I'm unsure what to get that would give me a good increase in performance at under £250.

Think this is an ok upgrade or would you recommend anything (or everything ) different?

Thanks hex!

oh, reasons for upgrading (so would obviously like to improve these, or eliminate them):

- feeling quite sluggish even after format, just the hardware showing its age I guess
- not being able to use the highest settings in newer games makes me sad
- really running out of space on my hard drive all the time

[Terbinator]

Could you not just get an extra 2x1GB sticks of RAM and save yourself some £££. Also is it not worth going for the Samsung F3 500GB ?

[matty-hodgson]

I just recently upgraded from an 8800GT (slightly better than your 8800 GTS 640) to a 4890. quite a decent upgrade and noticed a big difference in most games.

also, why not just get 2 more sticks of 1GB?

[Haiku32]

Current stuff I've got was originally 2 x 2GB, but I could not get both of them to work in my machine. Thought it was the RAM and RMA'd it, but it still wouldn't work. Was a new machine and I couldn't be bothered messing around anymore so I just settled for 2GB and sold the other stick. If I got another 2GB it would work fine, yeah?

Better to get 1 stick of 2GB or 2 x 1GB? Currently just have 1 stick of 2GB.

Drive looks better for 2 quid, cheers.

[matty-hodgson]

Current stuff I've got was originally 2 x 2GB, but I could not get both of them to work in my machine. Thought it was the RAM and RMA'd it, but it still wouldn't work. Was a new machine and I couldn't be bothered messing around anymore so I just settled for 2GB and sold the other stick. If I got another 2GB it would work fine, yeah?

Better to get 1 stick of 2GB or 2 x 1GB? Currently just have 1 stick of 2GB.

Drive looks better for 2 quid, cheers.

i'd say sell all the RAM and just get 2x2GBs in that case, then they're matched and should work very well together.

[Haiku32]

Yeah I'll probably just sell it, or keep it for spares in that case.

Does the graphics card and RAM I've picked look good, and the Samsung F3 500GB drive that Terbinator recommended?

[Terbinator]

Yeah I'll probably just sell it, or keep it for spares in that case.

Does the graphics card and RAM I've picked look good, and the Samsung F3 500GB drive that Terbinator recommended?

The F3 500GB is the fastest 500Gb drive out there at the minute and also the most efficient for the performance it gives as it only uses 1 platter. It took me around 12mins to install Windows 7 if thats of any use to you.

[Pob255]

The F3 500GB is the fastest 500Gb drive out there at the minute and also the most efficient for the performance it gives as it only uses 1 platter. It took me around 12mins to install Windows 7 if thats of any use to you.

The WB Caviar Black 500gb is also single platter and performs around the same level, however it is slightly more expensive
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500-G...MB-Cache-89-ms

Samsung F3
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500Gb...-Cache-8ms-OEM

Also a Scan "own" branded 4890
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-S...VI-I-HDTV-HDCP
Don't ask me what it's like, as I've never seen that card/cooler before.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Scan card is made by Vertex3D:

http://www.vtx3d.com/products_features.asp?id=3

AFAIK,Vertex3D is part of the same company as PowerColor.

[matty-hodgson]

i bought that VTX 4890 the other day, not a bad card but the cooler's a bit crap (replacing it with an AKASA Vortexx Neo soon though.)