do i upgrade ram first or HDD

[elbow_man]

i hope to do a major upgrade to my pc and was just wondering.

i have a 160gb seagate 7200rpm Ultra ata Hard drive
and a 512mb ddr 400 ram (cheap stuff)

which one do you think is slowing it down most?

i hope to get some ddr2 800 ram and a sataII (sata300) 320 WD HDD soon but sont know which order to upgrade in (im still saving up).

i know upgrading the ram means getting a new mobo but im going to do that anyway depending on which (HDD or RAM) is slowing down my pc more, and i need pci-e and sataII anyway.

plz give me some advice.

 

[GSM CEO]

Im pretty shure that the Ram is the component that is most slowing down your PC -

obviously DDr400 is slower than DDr800 -

If i were you, i would first buy bigger ram, and if its still not to the speed you like, add a 2nd hard drive (rather than replace it)

 

[dmj94044]

It sounds like your talking about a new motherboard (if you want SATA II and PCI-e and these aren't on your current set-up). In my opinion your first decision is whether to go core 2 duo or AMD 64 x 2. That will determine your motherboard options. After you have decided on your motherboard, buy either standard ram (1 GB or 2 GB for vista) or faster RAM that has overclocking potential.

Regards,

DeeJay

 

[Nitestick]

you're definitely confused. you can't install DDR2 memory in the same slots as DDR. unless that is one of a few particular Pentium 4 motherboards that have both 184 pin and 240 pin slots you can't install them on the same board (even then not at the same time). as for SATA you will also have to check your motherboard has SATA ports. i suggest you get at least one 512mb stick of DDR400. having greater hdd storage does barely anything to increase performance.

edit: ignore the parts of my post where it seems i can't read properly. i just woke up and i didn't process all of your post

 

[elbow_man]

yeah i do know about getting a new board, but what im talking about is the fact that my existing board has sata150 so i can get a sata HDD (which i dont have at the moment).

one thing that i am confused about is the ram (my mobo doesnt support ddr2 it but im getting a new one that does) my current mobo supports ddr upto ddr pc4000 (according to crucial) and agp. those are the main reasons im uprading the board. also it seems that the better parts are cheaper e.g. agp cards are MUCH more expensive that pci-e cards. which is slowing down my pc? ram or HDD?

also i was wondering how much slower ddr400 is over ddr2 800
and ddr2 667 over ddr2 800 (i dont know which one to get ddr2 667 or ddr2 800
(which i think i posted in another thread too but got unanswered)

 

[TAT_NRF]

The RAM will be slowing down ur computer if you only have 512, thats like the bear minimum for xp. if u wanna speed up ur general perofrmace just add more of the same speed RAM not faster cause they can only go as fast as the slowst

 

[elbow_man]

yeah i was thinking of replacing it with a whole 1gb (expensive good quality) or Cheap 2gb (ddr2 800/ddr2 667)

 

[Nitestick]

well what are your specs ? the difference in memory depends on your system components. i.e the difference between DDR400 on an AMD K8 processor compared to DDR2-800 on an Intel system isn't that huge.

 

[elbow_man]

i have an intel d945 i know its not the best and should get a core 2 duo but i will do that later.