Upgrade dilemma; TV tuner and/or new HD?

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KingAustin

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My birthday is coming up in 3 months and I'm trying to figure out what I should get. I'm thinking that I'll be able to get 1 of 2 options.

Option 1: A 150 gig Raptor Newegg.com - Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM 16MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM. I am looking for a drive that will load things fast as my current drive (an old sata western digital 80gig) is easily hindering some of my computer's performance.

Option 2: A 320 gig Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS (Perpendicular Recording Technology) 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
and
an ATI TV Wonder 650 Newegg.com - ATI 100-715331 PCI Interface TV Wonder 650 - High Definition Personal Video Recorder for PC - Retail.

I'm leaning heavily towards option 2, but don't necessarily want to throw away the first option because I already have a TV tuner (it was $20 and definitely delivers $20 worth, so it was a good buy since it does it's job, but you could compare the quality to a tv you find laying in the street probably).

I've heard nice things about the ATI 650, but does anyone else have another tuner which they think is better? Any input is appreciated. On a side note, I'm thinking about possibly asking for a DX10 card for Christmas.

I guess I'll also throw in a completely random option: video games. I have a 360, and that wireless steering wheel looks like fun (I bought Forza 2, awesome game), or possibly guitar hero 2 (even though I use frets on fire, google it if you don't know what that is), or just other games.

Thanks in advance for replies.
 
Do you have only one option? I guess it depends on what you want more. More hard drive space, a new TV tuner, or more gaming.

I guess if that TV tuner still satisfies you, theres not a real reason to go for a new one. That is unless you want to record and watch HDTV, with that HDTV tuner.

If you want fast performance from hard drives, just get two Seagate 7200.10, and put them in a RAID 0 configuration....close to the speed of a raptor, and cheaper.

A DX10 card, is really a nice option, if you're talking about getting a G92.
 
Yes I only have one option, my parents made over $500,000 this year, yet I get less than some of my friends whose parents dont even make $50,000..... bleh. At least they are helping me with some of my college costs though.

RAID 0 is actually pretty disappointing. I suggested it to one of my friends since I thought it was awesome, and after we got it set up there wasn't much noticeable difference, even in the benchmarks, so I'm not going down that road. I think I'll stick with option 2 for now. Does anyone know of any other tv tuners that might have a better price/performance ratio?
 
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