Dybdal

Hi guys.. Im planning on upgrading my rig a bit, but i can only afford one upgrade atm.

Im standing between upgrading my ram (<---in specs) or buying a boot drive ssd?

The ram upgrade would be from 2 gb 667 mhz ram to 4 gb 800 mhz lower latency ram (:

The ssd upgrade would be from a slow old IDE harddisk to a ocz vertex turbo 30 gb ssd. (:

The rest of my specs are out there <---

i have win7 32 bit and 64 bit ready to install, all depending on my amount of ram..

Can you help me? what would give the best performance boost overall and ing gaming?

Thx!!

__________________
Im a Danish hardwareheaven addict.

Best stable overclock done:

IvanV

I think that I'd go with the RAM.

A 30GB hard drive is big enough to install Windows 7 onto it and nothing else. That would speed up your booting, but I think that the rest of the time things would remain the same (I'm not sure if it's a good idea to even leave the swap file on the SSD, because the cells in it are only reliable up to a certain number of read-write cycles and swap data gets rewritten all the time).

Extra 2GB of RAM on the other hand might make a decent difference in some games (I see that you have a 5770, so I'm assuming that you game), as well as other scenarios, depending on what you do no the PC.

You may also consider a larger mechanical drive. 500GB - 1TB drives are not very expensive and, on top of giving you more space, they should also be significantly faster than your current drive.

__________________
If anyone has Portal 2 and hasn't played the co-op and wants to do me a favour, let me know (PM me or whatever).

Dyre Straits

I say go for the RAM, hands down.

Currently, I'd only use a SSD drive for storage due to its limited lifespan. Some reviews of SSD drives have convinced me to hold off on this technology for a bit longer until the life of one can be extended longer.

__________________

Cow_160483

Definitely get more ram

__________________

Decode!
Muhahahahah!

mkk

RAM today and an SSD around next winter when new technology hits the market. More RAM can improve performance when you are actually playing a game, while an SSD mostly makes it start up faster.

Dybdal

im thinking about getting these ram: PC2-6400 800Mhz C4, C5 & C6 BLACK DRAGON DUAL CHANNEL - Products - GeIL Memory

I like those, and they are actually among the cheapest here in dk

__________________
Im a Danish hardwareheaven addict.

Best stable overclock done:

Sihastru

Yeah, more RAM seems like the sensible choice at this time. Personally I own an Intel X25-E 32GB (didn't pay retail for it, it was actually 60 Euros and I couldn't resist, formatted it's like 29GB or something), and the standard Windows 7 Professional x64, with drivers and updates, takes up most of it, I am left with about 6-7GB free space on it (swap is ~8GB). It is VERY fast however.

I think 30GB formatted will be around 27GB, so you won't have a lot of space left. Assuming that Windows 7 will get a Service Pack soon(-ish) then you might be unable to install it. You'd need more then the 30-32GB models, preferably a minimum of 64GB.

So upgrade you RAM first, and by the end of this year (maybe the beginning of next year) expect SSD prices to go down (as flash density goes up), I think you should be able to buy AT LEAST a FASTER 64GB SSD for the price of the entry level 30GB SSDs (the cheap Kingston entry level models) have now.

__________________
There are more things in heaven and earth then are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Intel Core i7 3820 | Corsair H80 | Asus P9X79 | Kingston HyperX T1 Black 32GB DDR3 | Gigabyte 8800 GTS 512 | 2xIntel X25-M 160GB RAID0 + 2xWD 1TB Green RAID1 | Asus Xonar DX | Asus ES2-750 | Sony OptiArc DVD+/-RW | Corsair AX850 Gold | Fractal Design Define R3 Titanium | Dell 3007WFP-HC2 30" 2560x1600 | Corsair SP2500 | Logitech UltraX Premium | CM Storm Advance | Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64bit

Dybdal

I have been considering if i wait with the ssd upgrade, then save up and buy 2 and put them in raid 0

__________________
Im a Danish hardwareheaven addict.

Best stable overclock done:

Lowfat

Without a doubt I would go w/ the SSD. Windows 7 will run perfectly fine w/ 2GB of ram. I run a 30GB Vertex w/ 2GB of ram in one of my machines and it runs flawlessly. An SSD is the biggest upgrade anyone can do to a system in my opinion. Especially if you are using a slow low density platter IDE drive like you mention.

__________________

Dyre Straits

You're out-voted.

__________________

Dybdal

I would like more opinions on this because it runs games great allready but not all maxed out, eventhough my gfx should could handle it

__________________
Im a Danish hardwareheaven addict.

Best stable overclock done:

temeteus82

that's one more reason to get more RAM

__________________

Cow_160483

It basically comes down to what you are going to be doing if its for gaming then the extra RAM will boost performance and the SSD not so much in comparison.

__________________

Decode!
Muhahahahah!

isaak

SSD will hands down be the best/most noticeable upgrade, but I would go with the RAM for now. Go for a 60GB SSD later down the track.

__________________
The first step... shall be to lose the way. - Galway Kinnell

IvanV

Well, apart from the graphics card, the rest of your PC is starting to show it's age. 2GB RAM @ 667MHz (at the age when 1333MHz DDR3 and 4GB configurations have pretty much become the norm) and a dual core CPU at humble 2.33GHz both take away a couple of fps in modern games.

I understand that you want to upgrade from that old 160GB HDD, but, going all out on an SSD or a pair of them for a RAID array doesn't seem very practical. Even if you could buy enough SSD storage to install your games on it, that would massively decrease your loading times, but after that, it would again be up to your CPU, GPU and RAM to provide a smooth gameplay.

If I were you, I'd be looking to refresh my RAM, CPU and HDD (but with a new mechanical HDD*, not with an SSD). If that's too costly for you now, you could get RAM and a hard drive and perhaps give your CPU a slight overclock, I'm sure that it would tell.

* As a hard drive comparison, I've got a 160GB WD HDD (8MB cache, 7200rpm, pretty typical for its day) in my old machine and HDTach measured an average read speed of 52.5MB/s, while the drive in my current machine, a 1TB Hitachi DeskStar (7200rpm, 16MB cache) got 93.7MB/s. That's not SSD class performance, but it's quite a decent speed bump which you'd be able to notice and a more sensible solution in your situation, at least in my opinion.

__________________
If anyone has Portal 2 and hasn't played the co-op and wants to do me a favour, let me know (PM me or whatever).

blibbax

The SSD will of course make thins that are on it load far faster than an IDE hard drive. However, more RAM can make a really huge difference to a system. I don't have Windows 7, but on Vista the move from 2gb to 4gb even on my relativley low end system was very noticeable, especially in some newer games and when running multiple large applications.

If I were you, I would get a cheap reasonably fast 4gb kit from a good brand now, and then get a faster, larger mechanical hard drive down the road. The speed difference from the mechanical hard drive will still be noticeable and more than sufficient for anything other than booting in super fast time.

I take it, by the way, that you do not have the option to put in another 2 1GB sticks at 667?

Edit: It seems Ivan was writing his post at the same time as me :P Did not see it before I posted, but yes an SSD or even 2 in raid 0 seems excessive for that rig. There's no problem at all with gaming on a slightly dated PC (mine's worse), but it's pointless to have an unbalanced one.

__________________

Dybdal

Should i buy 2 gb 667 mhz ram more or shuld i buy 4 gb 800mhz ram? How big would the difference be?

__________________
Im a Danish hardwareheaven addict.

Best stable overclock done:

IvanV

It shouldn't make too much of a difference. The difference between two adjacent memory speeds is never dramatic, so 800MHz vs 667MHz should be measurable in some situations, but I don't think that it would go over 5% (except in synthetic tests which measure raw bandwidth, of course).

Also, if you are just adding extra 2GB, unless there's a price difference, there's no need to insist on 667MHz memory as any 800MHz module will work at the lower frequency just fine.

__________________
If anyone has Portal 2 and hasn't played the co-op and wants to do me a favour, let me know (PM me or whatever).

Dybdal

I was just thinking if i should upgrade all my ram to 800 mhz And i might be overclocking my cpu, but still on stock cooler..

__________________
Im a Danish hardwareheaven addict.

Best stable overclock done:

Judas

typical everyday office applications with little to no multitasking.. the SSD would appear to be a good choice..

but alas, anything less then 4gb of ram and that SSD's master boost won't show any significant signs of being useful if it has no where to dump what it's loading into.

4gb +++

__________________

Matth

With dual channel RAM, there may be some advantage in running the RAM at 1/2 FSB with tight timings, so for an e6550 at stock, DDR2-667 is actually well balanced.

If you get an overclock from 333 to 400 master clock - (1333FSB to 1600), then DDR2-800 would be better balanced - not sure if Core 2 is a s sensitive to it as the old P4 which really did not like latency at all.

If you can't run to RAM and SSD, maybe a faster hard drive on SATA, and some of the other 7200 drives have a transfer rate better than the Raptors, if the primary parttition is kept to less than 1/3 of the drive (and the remainder can still be used for lower performance filepile, images of CD/DVD etc.)

__________________
Mary had a little lamb,
Her father shot it dead
Now Mary takes her lamb to school,
Between two crusts of bread

Sihastru

Just realized I had hibernation on, so after dealing with that, and deleting the hiberfil.sys file, I now have ~12GB free, that might change things.

But if you're interested in gaming, and doing less of everything else, the SSD won't get you far. Sure, things load faster, sure the system will seem more responsive, but your framerates in games will be the same.

Overclocking your CPU, at least to 2.8GHz should be doable on stock cooling and will result in a better experience overall, including games. If you can play with the memory/fsb dividers (depending on what your MB provides), 800MHz ram might not be required (or maybe you'll need more, like ~1066).

RAM seems quite expensive these days to me (at leas DDR2 does), and any next platform upgrade will require DDR3 or better so I wouldn't invest too much into a now outdated technology.

So just buy an extra 2 sticks of 1GB each, even if it's just 667. The extra RAM frequency might give you just 3-5% of overall performance boost, or it might not give you any at all, it would be hard to "feel" it anyway. Increasing the memory capacity should give you a better boost then increasing it's speed in such a small increment.

It seems to me that you don't want to blow a lot of cash on your computer at this time, and if you start overthinking it, you'll end up doing just that (been there, done that).

__________________
There are more things in heaven and earth then are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Intel Core i7 3820 | Corsair H80 | Asus P9X79 | Kingston HyperX T1 Black 32GB DDR3 | Gigabyte 8800 GTS 512 | 2xIntel X25-M 160GB RAID0 + 2xWD 1TB Green RAID1 | Asus Xonar DX | Asus ES2-750 | Sony OptiArc DVD+/-RW | Corsair AX850 Gold | Fractal Design Define R3 Titanium | Dell 3007WFP-HC2 30" 2560x1600 | Corsair SP2500 | Logitech UltraX Premium | CM Storm Advance | Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64bit

Dybdal

A part of what made me consider buying a ssd was because i could use it in my next build:P

__________________
Im a Danish hardwareheaven addict.

Best stable overclock done:

Kein

SSD needs a bit of free space available for wear leveling and other tweaks or there'll be performance degradation over time, the 30GB drive may be a bit small if you're planning to install games on it. As for Just OS + apps usage, it'll overshadow any benefit of more ram or cpu oc'ing by a good margin, unless you just use your pc for gaming.

Btw, did you give up on your last SFF building? i remember you asking for advice.

Dybdal

I never got around to it, but iwe still got some ideas in my head someday when i have the $$$ to it i will build it, but i will need a new list of hardware by then

it will be mostly gaming

__________________
Im a Danish hardwareheaven addict.

Best stable overclock done:

blibbax

Good point. It's not worth spending too much on an older rig, your paying for older parts. Spend some by all means to extend its life a bit, but don't buy components with the intention of using them in your next build. It's not efficient, and they may well be obselete by then.

__________________

Dybdal

i bought my 5770 with the intention of crossfireing it in my next build

__________________
Im a Danish hardwareheaven addict.

Best stable overclock done: