upgrading am2+ system, how would you spend 250$?

[Koharski]

current system:
mobo: gigabyte USH2
cpu: phemom II x2 550 BE
psu: antec earthwatts 650
ram: corsair xms2 2x2gb 800mhz
graphics: integrated
HDD: samsung 1tb

i've got 250$ to spend, what do you think the weakest areas of the system are? I do intend to run a second monitor in the future so an add in graphics card will be a necessity, but other than that I dont do any gaming. This is a heavy miltimedia system and i've got it hooked up to a sound system worth a lot more than the computer, i'm considering the purchase of a higher end sound card but i'm not looking for some 7.1, i'd prefer a 2.1 based card with a high quality set of OPamps. Also considering another 4gb of ram.

how do amds higher end cpus compare to what I have in my computer right now?

 

[philosofool]

Since you're not looking for graphics horse power, I recommend a budget ATI card with HDMI and 7.1 audio over-HDMI. For whatever reason, I can't help but feel that you should get one with GDDR3 RAM not GDDR2; the performance difference is real and the cost difference is negligible. However, I confess that I'm no sound card expert and while the sound card should be compatible with sending the sound over the Video Card HDMI, I won't guarantee it. The advice I always hear on sound cards is "avoid Creative." The video card should be under $50.

Good sound cads are about $100; HT Omega gets the best reviews from Newegg. Indeed, they're almost uniformly positive, which is very unusual in the sound card business.

I would look into an Athlon X4--AMD makes $100 quad cores that are very good processors. I'm assuming you're encoding video with this machine and you will get a big performance boost from a 4 core system. However, unless you are doing things like video encoding, the processor you have is probably as powerful as you need.

You will not see an improvement from getting more RAM.

 

[Pederv]

The fastest processor that your motherboard can handle is a 955BE X4, but that would eat up a big chunck of your funds. The Athlon II 620 X4 or the 720BE X3 would leave you with some cash for the sound card.
A 4670 (with native HDMI out) based video card may be too much video card but it's better than the integrated video that you have and it's about $70 - $80.
Instead of installing more memory maybe upgrading to 1066 will help speed things up.
My son goes to the audiophile sites and gets the current "hot sound card" that performs the best after it's been modified per the instructions availible on the audiophile sites.

 

[heyheybooboo]

... This is a heavy miltimedia system and i've got it hooked up to a sound system worth a lot more than the computer ...

The onboard Realtek 889A supports lossless content protection up to 2-channel 192kHz sample rate / BluRay-Dolby TrueHD ---- a Radeon HD 57XX video card (AFAIK) HDMI 1.3 connection will transport the original TrueHD bitstream for decoding by your receiver.

Anand verified this on the higher-end HD 5XXXs and I'm assuming the 'Juniper' versions maintain this capability but I don't really know.

The 'Junipers' range from $145 and up, and would certainly cover any video expansion needs you may desire (but you could run 2 monitors - 1 analog/1 digital - off the IGP if necessary).

That would leave $100 or so for other expansion --- including a Gigabyte 785g AM2+ that might unlock that Phenom 550BE. Moving to 785g AM3 might be an option but that would blow your budget (unless you sell off the 780g & DDR2).

 

[WildW]

If you are encoding video, a second hard disk is a cheap and worthy performance booster. Reading from and writing back to the same hard disk at the same time can greatly slow down video encoding.

The rest really depends on what you're doing, and what you're doing that you'd like to be faster. . . if faster is what you're looking for? If you're into high-end audio, maybe you'd like your computer to be quieter?

 

[ChaiBabbaChai]

... This is a heavy miltimedia system and i've got it hooked up to a sound system worth a lot more than the computer, i'm considering the purchase of a higher end sound card ...

Hmmmm.... something seems a little off to me if you have a good amount invested in your stereo, and you're using onboard sound.

 

[Fox5]

Hmmmm.... something seems a little off to me if you have a good amount invested in your stereo, and you're using onboard sound.

If he's using digital output, what difference does it make? Especially if he doesn't care about surround sound.

 

[ChaiBabbaChai]

If he's using digital output, what difference does it make? Especially if he doesn't care about surround sound.

That's a big "IF"... I wouldn't assume so much, especially given his post.