lstucz wrote:terrell wrote:if i threw in another sata drive for striping, would that significantly (thinking of cost/benefit) improve the disk data transfer rate score?
If you have another SATA drive of the same size, just sitting around, then it may be worth the effort. However, if you need to spend any amount of cash on a second drive, then probably not. Now, because of the amazing difference in read/write speeds going from HDD to SSD, upgrading to a single SSD will probably boost your WEI score a lot. But, is it worth the $300 investment for a 160Gb SSD just to boost your score a bit?
hmmm, the answer to that is...no. i love to tinker, but not $300 worth. and i don't just happen to have another sata drive sitting around either. so that idea is going to the back burner also.
lstucz wrote:If you are still running that nVidia 6200 I have heard so much about, then, upgrading to the ATI card which supports DirectX 10 will do more for your score than upgrading your storage.
actually, no. the 6200 went by the wayside when i started playing with the nvidia mobo. it included a 9200 chipset, which seems similar to the 6200. i'm pretty stoked about the 4650 now though. looking at the specs, i thought it was very low-end, i just wanted something cheap i could play links on windows 7.
lstucz wrote:I hate to disappoint you, t. But, your system is not much of a dinosaur, anymore. Maybe you should consider a $200 monitor which supports 1080p true HD resolution once you buy your friends video card and welcome to the 21st century.
lol. color me disappointed. but lw said he was buying a new machine. mine's still a conglomeration of cannibalized parts, none of which were purchased new. however, i admit, the specs are improving. (8
edit #1: actually, i've come close to buying a flat panel a couple of times. but until the crt totally craps out, i'm sticking with it. there was a lady that wanted to buy it, but it fluctuates sometimes, like the flyback's going out, so i wouldn't do the deal.
lstucz wrote:How old is your friends 4650 video card, if he is selling it for $50? You can buy a brand new one with 1Gb of VRAM for $65 with a lifetime warranty. Even cheaper if it only has 512Mb. Maybe you should offer him $30.
crap! now you tell me. he says less than a year. and it's the 1 gb flavor. i had searched the internet for the best deal and came up with the $50. he's bringing it tomorrow, so there's no way i'd back out now, or try to renegotiate. i'm just that way.
lstucz wrote:Just make sure the video card and your available slot are both PCIe 2.0 X16. They are backwards compatible. However, the performance level may not be quite as high if they are not exactly the same.
hmmmm, i'm gonna hafta do some research on that. i'm positive the mobo has one pci-e x16 slot, but i'm not sure whether it's 2.0. not sure about the card either. if they're not the same, is that enough to be a deal breaker?
thanks very much for your time, lou. and blade. i respect you guys' opinions very much. i'm a hacker, and i consider you two professionals. (8