Which of these three computer upgrades would be most helpful?

Question

Here are the specs on my computer:
Asus A8N SLI-Deluxe motherboard
250 GB Seagate SATA hardrive
1 GB of memory (I actually have 1 GB and a 512 MB stick, but it reads only as 1 GB)
2 x Geforce PCI-express 6600 (running SLI, 256 mb a piece)
Samsung 19" LCD monitor; VGA (600:1, 12 ms response time)
Integrated 8 channel audio
1.8 GHz AMD Athlon 64
DVD burner and DVD/CD-ROM player (1 of each)

Could yall please rank the following upgrade options in order of most helpful:
1. Buying another 1GB and a 512 mB sticks of RAM to give me 3GB of RAM.
2.Buying a 2.2-2.4 Ghz AMD Athlon X2 (Dual Core) processor
3. A 19-22" Widescreen DVI output monitor
4. A designated sound card
5. Something else.

Thanks.

The Graphics cards are 6600 LE's.

How much am I losing by having a VGA instead of a DVI output on my monitor?

Answer 1

my 2 cents:
in order of overall performance:
1. upgrade the ram, but go w/2 1GB sticks (and toss the 512MB to someone you know who will appreciate it.)
2. upgrade your processor.
3. adding a decicated sound card may give you slightly better audio and take that load off of your CPU, but now-a-days unless you NEED great audio, it is easier and often better to stick w/what you already have.

upgrading your monitor won't have a positive impact on how fast your system is, but may make like a bit more enjoyable, especially if you add it as a 2nd monitor w/extended desktop.

Answer 2

You're not losing much being on the VGA connecter instead of DVI.

Moving from Athlon 64 to X2 would be the biggest overall boost for general-purpose computing (if your current motherboard will accept it)

The new Core 2 Duo processors (E6300 or E6400) are actually less expensive in addition to being faster, but would require a new motherboard and probably new RAM, so you probably don't want to go that route.

For gaming purposes I'd recommend getting a better video card- two 6600 LE's in SLI mode?? I don't recommend anything less than a 7300 to begin with, these days. Upgrading to a 7900GT or 7950GTX (essentially dual 7900 SLI power on a single card) would make a huge difference, more than the CPU upgrade.

Answer 3

I would start with the RAM. Not by upgrading, but by finding out why the 512 meg isn't registering. Try removing and replacing the ram one by one. If the ram does register up to a gig, but not over, there may be a bad memory slot. GIven the ammount of slots available, and your information in the question, I would guess one of two things:
1. Bad or incompatible RAM
2. Bad RAM slot
According to ASUS' product page for your board, this is what is required:
- 4 x 184-pin DIMM Sockets support max. 4GB DDR400/DDR333/DDR266 ECC/ non-ECC un-buffered DDR SDRAM memory
- Dual Channel Memory Architecture

Answer 4

buying 1gb and a 512mb stick of ram then your computer will run really fast and then I would reccomend buying 2.4ghz Dual core processor! ;) Rover45662001

Answer 5

well, none of those are going to be really big upgrades. i guess the memory. but i personally would go for the faster processor 2.4 (over 1.8)