IS it better to upgrade video or hard drive??

[Coolgreany]

Hi, I'm bringing my wife's computer in to the 20th century and finally letting go of Windows ME.

I just replaced her old Mobo witha Athlon-64 3000 combo and 1 gb RAM (good deal at Frys B&M) and am using the old video (Vanta 64mb AGP) and hard drive (Maxtor 5400 rpm) both about 3-4 years old).

My question is, if I got a good deal on a video or hd which would help best? The machine is used mostly for internet and email etc..... with the odd game like Myst, Riven etc.....

I noticed the Mobo has a SATA port so would it be better to go with a SATA hard drive with 7200 rpm??

 

[corkyg]

I would say that the most noticeable improvement would come by upgrading the hard drive. Later, you can replace the monitor.

 

[Navid]

If you need disk space, you need to get a larger hard drive.

However, for reading email and playing games, you will notice no improvement in performance by upgrading the hard drive. When you are playing a game, it is all loaded into RAM. You do not access the hard drive except when loading a new map.

You will notice improvement in games if you upgrade the video card. But, I am not familiar with the games you have listed. Some games may not benefit if they are too simple and have no advanced graphics.

Graphics cards advance much faster than hard drives.

 

[jackschmittusa]

Big difference even in ordinary stuff by moving up to a 7200rpm drive. If the visual quality in the old games is acceptable now, no need to upgrade. While there might be some improvement to be had in running higher settings with a new card, I doube that there would be much with games so old. My wife used to play those with the settings maxed out with a 64mb Radeon 8500.

 

[Grimner]

Myst and Riven isn't very demanding on the graphic side. If they work now, don't fix'em.

Going from 5400rpm to 7200rpm is noticable and recommended. Things will load a little quicker. Also, there should be other benefits in a new drive, such as less noise and more space.
SATA is nice, but not necessary for your use (nor mine for that matter), so if you get a good deal on an IDE drive, go for it.

And thank you for putting one more copy of Windows ME out of its misery

 

[Octavarium]

I'm surprised you're bringing your wife into the 20th century! All of us here are in the 21st!

All (corny) jokes aside, you should upgrade the hard drive first. Since your wife is only playing old games, a high-end video card is not necessary.

I'd recommend getting a nice hard drive, and then if your wife decides to play newer, shinier games, or do lots of heavy video-editing, upgrading the vid card.

 

[Navid]

I cannot find any information about Vanta!
Is that a DX9 card?

I remember when I upgraded to a DX9 card the games looked much better.


It sounds like those games are basic games, which probably will not benefit from a DX9 card. Or may be the card you have is already DX9. Then, getting a new graphics card would be wasting your money.

 

[Coolgreany]

Navid, here's info on Vanta http://www.dansdata.com/butterfly.htm

Thaks everyone, I think the HD is the way to go especially since it seems to be getting pulsed a lot for some reason - any idea what might be causing that? Windows XP automatically converted the file system over from Fat32 to NTFS so I'm wondering should I have re formatted the drive myself.

 

[Navid]

Oh, I see. It is actually a 16MB card and DX6.
http://www.gpureview.com/Riva-TNT2-M64-card-207.html