Time to upgrade my sound OR my HDD

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CorruptAssassin

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Hey all,

Its that time of year again where I have some left over money, and I want to upgrade something relatively cheap in my PC.

My specs are as follows:

AMD 2600+
Gigabyte GA-7VT600
Geforce 6600GT
1gig RAM (PC2700)
40gig HHD (no cache)
Onboard 5.1 AC97 sound
2.1 Logitech x230 speakers

Now, I want to upgrade either my HDD or grab a dedicated sound card. However, I just dont know what to get!!!!

The sound card im considering is:
SB Audigy 2 Value

The hard drive im considering is:
140gig Western Digital with 8meg cache

Im down to 2 gigs on my 40giger, but I think I can manage to uninstall some things (basically, its a juggle of what to keep and what to p*ss off). As for sound, ive noticed sound problems in GTA:SA, and when comparing my PC to a friends who's is almost completely identical (bar a larger hard drive with cache, and a sound blaster audio card), he gets greater performance in games such as Doom 3, HL2, and Battlefield 2.

Therefore, the possibility of running EAX, hardware sound, high sound quality, and gaining performance looks great, whereas a new hard drive will decrease loading times (ive noticed it struggles when loading games/unloading games such as BF2) and give me some breathing room with regards to HDD size.

Any suggestions? I can only get one option, and have around 100-130 to spend (Aussie dollars). To compare the AU$ to US$, a Audigy 2 Value costs about $90. The 140gig HDD costs around $120-130.
 
Harddrive, and yes the harddrive has cache, either 2 meg or 8 meg of cache. Probolly 8 meg.
 
Get the harddrive. You can live with the onboard sound for a while. Heck, I went without sound for a couple years. But the new harddrive will be better for your games and what not. You can eventually get a different soundcard when you have some more spare cash.
 
hmm.. 140gig? you sure its not either 120 or 160? 140 just seems strange to me for some reason... don't think computer sites i go to carry them.. anyways, definitley go for a new HDD. if you're really worried about integrated sound taking away from your performance.. which is probably the first time i've heard of this, go grab a cheap one, no need for audigy 2. my comp store has some 6channel ones for under $20, canadian! so in the states probably around $10.

invest in a new HD!
 
hey thanks guys, I think the new hard drive would be nice. 140gigs was just an estimate, ball park figure, the 160gig one is around 120 which suits me nicely.

Getting games and applications to load faster, thanks to a larger hard drive with cache looks the goer. I'll eventually get the Audigy 2, as I have heard it can boost performance.
 
DJ-CHRIS said:
Harddrive, and yes the harddrive has cache, either 2 meg or 8 meg of cache. Probolly 8 meg.

is 'buffer size' the same thing as cache? I have Everest Home Edition, and under buffer size of the hard drive, it says 2Mb.

My hard drive is a MAXTOR 6L040J2.

Finally, can a new hard drive really improve gaming performance? If so, by how much? Remember that I am down to 1-2 gig on my current hard drive, its 5 years old, and has 2 megs of cache (maybe).
 
i think the performance boost is from taking the hassle off your processor because the sound has seperate peice of hardware
 
in gaming per se, i don't think HDD will make a noticeable difference. in terms of loading programs, etc.. yes.. but not in gaming.
 
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