12-22-2003, 03:02 AM
I am blessed (or cursed, depending upon how you look at it), with parents who insist on buying me Christmas presents, but can never quite find the right thing. So I've become accustomed to receiving checks around this time of year, which does kind of erode the holiday spirit, but hey, it's the thought that counts, right?
So anyway, a few days ago my "present" arrived in the mail in the form of $200. I've been sitting on it, trying to decide what exactly to do with it, since then.
My first impulse was to save it away and begin building up reserves to eventually buy a non-3-year-old computer. But that won't work; already I've had to dip into it for various and sundry things (emergency grocery store runs, eating out on the spur of the moment, etc) and I know if I try to set it aside I'll just burn through it.
My second thought was to maybe invest in a console; I haven't owned one since my old PS1 died, and there are several console-exclusive titles I wouldn't mind playing (I hear Metroid Prime is good... ;) ), but $200 buys a console and maybe 1 or 2 games, so it would seem a bad investment.
Now I'm thinking I may sink the money into short-term computer upgrades. My grandfather's pretty much over his recent health problems, so I should be able to start looking for a 'real' job soon. With an actual income, a new computer is only 3 or 4 months' worth of careful banking away.
With that in mind, $200 could procure some decent upgrades. I've done a quick scan on NewEgg for the parts I seem most in need of upgrading (RAM and my video card) and they've got Geforce4 MX440-8Xs listed for $45-50 and 256mb sticks of DDR RAM for $40. I'd be buying local in any case so the prices will be higher, but it seems to me that $200 will buy at least 256mb more RAM and a low-end GF4.
So, some questions:
1) My current video card is a GeForce 2 MX/MX400 64mb PCI (See? Crap.); what kind of performance increase in general would be seeing with a GeForce4 MX440 AGP (my 'board has an AGP slot, I just screwed up when buying my last card... <_< )? I don't need "OMG MY EYES ARE BLEEDING" graphics, but being able to run newer games (KOTOR I'm looking at you!) with some of the eye-candy actually turned on would be nice. I haven't looked at any ATI cards, but I'm by no means an NVIDIA fanboy, so any suggestions for a decent budget-priced card in that camp would be welcomed as well.
2) I'm going to have to dig around in my control panel to see what kind of RAM I'm using now, whether it's SD or DDR; I honestly don't remember. I actually don't know what the difference between them is (urk), so if my mobo supports both (?) and I'm using the crappy type, I may end up replacing my current 256mb stick with another (I'd have to crack my case to confirm, but IIRC my mobo has only 2 RAM slots, so 2x256mb is probably as high as I can go with my current funds). Anyone mind giving me a rundown of the differences between SD/DDR/whatever other types I don't know of?
So anyway, a few days ago my "present" arrived in the mail in the form of $200. I've been sitting on it, trying to decide what exactly to do with it, since then.
My first impulse was to save it away and begin building up reserves to eventually buy a non-3-year-old computer. But that won't work; already I've had to dip into it for various and sundry things (emergency grocery store runs, eating out on the spur of the moment, etc) and I know if I try to set it aside I'll just burn through it.
My second thought was to maybe invest in a console; I haven't owned one since my old PS1 died, and there are several console-exclusive titles I wouldn't mind playing (I hear Metroid Prime is good... ;) ), but $200 buys a console and maybe 1 or 2 games, so it would seem a bad investment.
Now I'm thinking I may sink the money into short-term computer upgrades. My grandfather's pretty much over his recent health problems, so I should be able to start looking for a 'real' job soon. With an actual income, a new computer is only 3 or 4 months' worth of careful banking away.
With that in mind, $200 could procure some decent upgrades. I've done a quick scan on NewEgg for the parts I seem most in need of upgrading (RAM and my video card) and they've got Geforce4 MX440-8Xs listed for $45-50 and 256mb sticks of DDR RAM for $40. I'd be buying local in any case so the prices will be higher, but it seems to me that $200 will buy at least 256mb more RAM and a low-end GF4.
So, some questions:
1) My current video card is a GeForce 2 MX/MX400 64mb PCI (See? Crap.); what kind of performance increase in general would be seeing with a GeForce4 MX440 AGP (my 'board has an AGP slot, I just screwed up when buying my last card... <_< )? I don't need "OMG MY EYES ARE BLEEDING" graphics, but being able to run newer games (KOTOR I'm looking at you!) with some of the eye-candy actually turned on would be nice. I haven't looked at any ATI cards, but I'm by no means an NVIDIA fanboy, so any suggestions for a decent budget-priced card in that camp would be welcomed as well.
2) I'm going to have to dig around in my control panel to see what kind of RAM I'm using now, whether it's SD or DDR; I honestly don't remember. I actually don't know what the difference between them is (urk), so if my mobo supports both (?) and I'm using the crappy type, I may end up replacing my current 256mb stick with another (I'd have to crack my case to confirm, but IIRC my mobo has only 2 RAM slots, so 2x256mb is probably as high as I can go with my current funds). Anyone mind giving me a rundown of the differences between SD/DDR/whatever other types I don't know of?
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