300$, What to buy?

[Wheelchair]

So Yeah, I have 300$ and I want to buy something for my PC that will give a noticable upgrade, this will be my last purchase until I start saving for my i7 Build.

What I have right now:

P5K-Premium Motherboard (Wifi Edition) LGA755
4GB G-Skill 1066MHz RAM
E8400 Duo-Core Overclocked to 3.65GHz
GTX260 OC MaXcore 888MB GPU OC'd More
500GB 7200RPM HardDrive
Antec 900 Case with 5 fans (1 back, 1 top, 2 front, 1 side)
Antec 850W Quattro Modular PowerSupply

What I have in mind is buying a WD Velociraptor... It will cost me 247$, that includes shipping and handling.

I was going to buy a new Case (Coolermaster HAF) But I rethought it as a waste of money seeing that all I was buying it for was better wire managment... For 200$, which dosnt seem worth it.

I JUST bought that powersupply for 193$, What a beast of a Powersupply, That's for futureproofing my machine so I can do GTX260 SLI later on ^^

How much Performance increase will I see with a new WD Velociraptor?

[Caml3]

I'm not really sure how much you would notice with a 20% bump in speed, I'm sure your loads are already pretty darn fast between your CPU speed and RAM volume.
If it was my $300, I'd either get a swanky Samsung moniter or some Bose speakers with that budget, then go solid state for your next build since Windows7 will be optimized for it.

[zachattack]

Velocirapter, 10000RPM?

I dunno. I heard 10000RPM is a bit unstable and gets really hot, but who knows.

Personally I'd have more fun just doing a huge RAID with 300$

[M.E.]

A nice 2x640Gb raid would not hurt, I guess. Btw, are you happy with your monitor?

[Fingon NL]

Or go for the new SSD-harddisks.

[Wheelchair]

I pretty much have the best 22" Monitor on the market

Samsung T220.

Btw, 7200 to 10k RPM is not JUST an increase of RPM, you have cache increase, response decrease(good), stable reads (Mine jumps from 80 to 40 back to 80 alot, whereas 10krpm is 109 constant).

My harddrive is my bottleneck of the system. I have all this nicehardware and it takes 15-20 seconds to boot? a 10krpm drive would make that 7-9 seconds.

[aqd]

Buy a new, big, shining LCD!

It's the only thing that matters when you're not playing games

[Freddie]

A sound card and a quality set of headphones! You will notice the difference and you appreciate the fantastic sound effects there are in games now which IMO you don't get with speakers. It may not seem that exciting as getting a 2nd GTX260 for SLI but this will give you a better experience.

You might also want another hard drive (internal and external) for backup (external, and convenient to take around to friends houses) and another one (internal) for a spare installation of your OS in case your current one goes pear shaped (trust me this happens to the worst and best of us me included) and you need to get your files off before you re-format it.

Do you have a phone with a memory chip? A Camera? How about getting a card reader to make it easier to transfer pictures and files from device to PC.

[AlfonsoVIII]

I would not buy anything, a faster hard drive might increase performance a little bit. Not worth a 247 upgrade.

[Pent uP Rage]

I have Velociraptors. They're nice, but the only difference it makes is in boot and load times. Other general performance, not so much.
I'd agree w/ Freddie in saying you should get a new sound card and a nice set of cans.

I'd get either an HT-Omega Claro, or if you're running Vista, an X-fi Platinum. For a quality sounding headset at a cheap price, I'd look at the Koss headset.
Of course, headphones are a personal choice imo. What sounds good to me or anyone else, might not sound so great to you. I've had headsets from just about every major company and I like the Koss and Plantronics best. The Koss sounds a little more accurate imo, but the Plantronics is built a little tougher.

Personally, I'd probably just save the cash towards the new build otherwise.

[Wheelchair]

Hmmm I may save.... I think I might just pickup a new HSF for my CPU, and makesure it comes with a LG1366 adapter plate thing so that when I upgrade to i7 I can use it

The reason I havnt been able to buy a new HSF is because I bought the worst powersupply ever (powerBAY, wtf?) and the 8Pin is basically BENDING the reciever on the motherboard because it is barely long enough to stretch accross, the wires so tight across that its chaffing my GPU and ( ) far from my CPU fan, but I just bought a Antec Quattro 850W Modular supply which should be here tuesday or wednesday!

[Strelok]

The VelociRaptor's do not get hot, they have a much better internal cooling solution, my 7,200RPM ran at 35C where as my VelociRaptor runs at 22C. Not an issue.

RAID 7,200RPM just increases read speeds and does nothing to random access. A VelociRaptor is a good choice. An SSD is amazing for boot up times and gaming but the random writes are bad.

Also a VelociRaptor will not improve boot up time as dramatic as an SSD. My Vista takes 1 and 1/2 bars to boot, where the SSD is none.

All in all if you want to save up for an i7 + HSF, go for it, a fast hard disk is just to complete your system and is the lynchpin for *overall* system performance, which includes gaming (minimum frame rates, and low frame rate recovery times)

In my opinion, a "write friendly" SSD RAID array is the best solution.

Right now I have a VelociRaptor as an OS drive and a 32GB SSD as a game drive.

[AlfonsoVIII]

SSD HD are too new that I would not mess with until a year after we see how long they last and improve the technology to get bigger drive space and lower the price.

[Strelok]

SSD HD are too new that I would not mess with until a year after we see how long they last and improve the technology to get bigger drive space and lower the price.

SSD's are fine, you just dont want to write to them a lot (a.k.a an OS). So that means: No page file, no logging, no system protection, nothing at all. They don't spin or produce heat, so if you take care of them they last a long time.

So using a small capacity high performance one as a game drive is a good solution.

[Top-Tier-Tech]

A sound card and a quality set of headphones!

Video card is a way better choice.

[Freddie]

In my opinion, a "write friendly" SSD RAID array is the best solution.

Right now I have a VelociRaptor as an OS drive and a 32GB SSD as a game drive.

I would have to agree with that, if you really want to improve your overall system I would suggest you save your money and buy a OCZ Vertex 120Gb.

OCZ 120Gb Vertex Preview

Ignore the first chart that burst rate means nothing, but check out the Average transfer rates, the drive is truly exceptional and manages to keep up with Intel XM-25 which are SLC devices (OCZ's are MLC which are meant to be slower). I can't wait to see what this sucker is like when it's in a RAID 0 and RAID 5 array.

Unlike the Apex series the Vertex doesn't use Jmicron controllers as self RAID 0 array. Also I've read SSD's which use the JMicron controller (found on the APEX) degrade in performance over time. In fact that probably explains why OCZ have launched the Vertex series so quickly after the Apex line. :hmmm:

Now if you think those new Apex SSD's are impressive read this. 550Mb's on Read! I'll believe it when I see it but if it is true.......
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry for going off track but SSD's seem to be getting more and more exciting with every week that goes by.

Do you really need a new HSF for your CPU? Wouldn't you rather have an upgrade that will actually make your gaming more enjoyable? A good set of headphones will do that, a good set of headphones offer a whole different experience from crappy speakers.

Video card is a way better choice.

He already has a GTX260 Core 216, he can play games like Call of Duty 4 at 80 fps why would playing the game at 120fps make any difference or make it more enjoyable?

It's a lot harder to sell Sound/Audio upgrades because the benefits aren't visual or can easily represented on a graph for neat comparisons. Good headphones would actually benefit his gaming experience and make it more enjoyable not to mention making games more immersive, that's my point that's something a newer video card can't do (yet). Audio equipment is well overlooked and your missing out on a lot of work that game designers put into audio production.

[Strelok]

To be honest I was looking at a good pair of headphones that were around $130, however I really wanted to try out SSD technology and the new HSF for my CPU.

I would wholely agree on good set of speakers/headphones giving maximum gaming experience.

[Wheelchair]

Haha Freddie, I have a 300$ sound system >.<

I think I'm going to save for my i7 Build Theres a i7 920 and 3GB of 1600mhz DDR ram for 399! In Canada, thats a deal!

[Top-Tier-Tech]

He already has a GTX260 Core 216, he can play games like Call of Duty 4 at 80 fps why would playing the game at 120fps make any difference or make it more enjoyable?

It's a lot harder to sell Sound/Audio upgrades because the benefits aren't visual or can easily represented on a graph for neat comparisons. Good headphones would actually benefit his gaming experience and make it more enjoyable not to mention making games more immersive, that's my point that's something a newer video card can't do (yet). Audio equipment is well overlooked and your missing out on a lot of work that game designers put into audio production.

I did something you didn't do... I looked at his profile picture and seen he had a good sound system. PWNT

[Roman Clone]

Send the bloody money to me! I could finally buy my way to a girl for once.


I would recommend another GTX 260 Core 216 to SLI with your system.

And I know you love your E8400, but maybe a Quad-Core like the Q6600 wouldn't hurt.