Can't Decided what to upgrade next

[thenetstud]

Maybe you guys could help I will list my specs and you guys can offer me suggestions on what to upgrade.

MSI K7N2 Delta-LSR
AMD XP 2000+
512mb DDR3200
80gb WD
64mb ATI Radeon 7000


I just bought the motherboard the other day and am very happy with it. Now I want to either upgrade the processor or the video card. Both need replacing but I can only afford to do one or the other right now.

I mostly use the computer for surfing the net and downloading some videos. Any suggestions?

[Shaner]

For basic browsing, you don't need a good video card.

If you're going to upgrade anything, get more memory or like you said, a better CPU, although the one you have is just fine for what you do.

I'll never understand why people want a top of the line computer just to browse the web.

[Outsider]

If all you're doing is surfing the net and watching videos, why do you feel the need to upgrade?
For what you described, your system is as fast as it's gonna get.
You can slap an Athlon 64 FX55 in there with 4 gigs of ram and a GeForce 6800Ultra and 400 Gig of HD space, and surfing the net and watching videos will not be (or feel) any faster...

edit: as I was writing this Shaner beat me to the punch.

[willy]

CPU+mobo ... I think you are fine here.

RAM ... Monitor your memory usage. Add another 512MB if needed.

From what I can see, you could use some extra diskspace - larger & faster HD.

If you are not gaming, your video card is just fine.

Bottom line ... Try to save up your $$$ for a major upgrade. HD is a relatively safe investment as there is a very good chance you can reuse it on your next system.

[recordman]

Get a faster harddrive. If you can't afford a Raptor, get a harddrive with 16MB buffer like the Maxtor Maxline III.

I have a dual-Opteron 2GB system. In the two weeks I've used the system, I've yet to see my overall CPU usage at 100%. When I unrar/unzip stuff, the CPU usage is like 5%, but the whole process is still much slower than I expected because the system is just waiting for the harddrive to do its stuff. When I was using a 2MB buffer harddrive, things were even slower.