which is better: ram or cpu upgrade?

[Malabooboo]

I've got $100 to spend and want to improve the performance of my rig

should I buy another 512 stick of ram or upgrade my cpu?

for under $100 I can get a 2500+ barton, but is the performance increase from an 1800+ worth that?

I do a lot of graphics, and 1 GB of total ram would be nice...

opinions? thanks! :?:

[minibubba]

if you are doing a lot of graphic-type work, then I say go with the memory...1 gig can be a nice boost in that department

[Malabooboo]

aside from big graphics programs, would I see much of a difference in performance in other tasks if I went with another 512 memory?

[minibubba]

possibly, it depends on what these other taks are..

some game may get a boost from added memry, while others may not.
office apps will probably be better off with a new CPU instead of memory.
if you're a distributed computing fan, then a better CPU is what you'll want.
but anyting that is graphically intensive will benifit more from memory and video card

it's all a bit of a balance, and depends on what your primary use for the computer is

[aznx]

512 is enough, get a 1700+ barton and o/c it, or to be safe, get a 2500+ barton and o/c that.

[Mista K6]

Actually, if you wanna get a killer machine, save up even a little more money. Off hand, I'd say get the 2500 Barton, as it will SERIOUSLY boost you machine (not to mention there's room for overclocking if your RAM can take it). Secondly, I'm guessing you have one stick of 512mb RAM? If you get a matching stick of 512mb, you can run your memory in dual channel mode, which is seriously gonna give you another performance boost (tho not as much as the new processor would). But def look into the RAM after you get hte proc. Good luck! : peace2: Mista K6.

[The__tweaker]

512 is enough, get a 1700+ barton and o/c it, or to be safe, get a 2500+ barton and o/c that.

Nope, 512 Mb is often not enough, just open a couple of bigger projects in photoshop, + some other apps and then ya computer starts eating from the hdd instead.. Trust me I've seen it..

And stuff like 3d studio just need more mem, I'd say get another 512 stick.

[Malabooboo]

sounds like a toss up...maybe i'll buy both in september--isn't that when the new amd cpu's come out? Will the athlons go down in price then?

[kane2g]

512 is enough, get a 1700+ barton and o/c it, or to be safe, get a 2500+ barton and o/c that.

Unless I missed something there is no 1700+ barton. I think you mean TbredB dont ya?

[minibubba]

sounds like a toss up...maybe i'll buy both in september--isn't that when the new amd cpu's come out? Will the athlons go down in price then?

ya, the Athlon64 comes out spetember 22...I just imagine everyting 32-bit is going to experience major price drops then

[FLaCo]

Secondly, I'm guessing you have one stick of 512mb RAM? If you get a matching stick of 512mb, you can run your memory in dual channel mode, : peace2: Mista K6.

He is using the Asus KT Chipset not the nForce so dual channel is out of the question.

I would say go with the Barton...but i also would say to just wait it out..since you rig as of now...seems like a sweet system.

[Malabooboo]

thanks! yeah, i think i'll wait until the end of september and see what the prices are like then. maybe i'll upgrade both my cpu and memory.

there's another thread somewhere I read people saying that the performance increase from an 1800 to a 2500 (if you don't overclock) wasn't that dramatic.

[Master]

My PC is very similar to yours, (1700, nforce2, 2x256mb ram, ti4200) I would go for the CPU upgrade because that would definatly give you the best performance increase in games, but if you are doing big projects in photoshop and 3d studio max more than gaming the extra 512mb of RAM would give a nice improvement. It all depends on what you wanna use the PC for.

[Malabooboo]

I broke down and got the memory. 1 GB of memory sees a definite improvement in photoshop!

I'll upgrade my cpu later on when the price of a 2800 comes down the price of what the 2500 is now, for a 1 Ghz upgrade (kind of).