What is more important: RAM or CPU

[Roland Deschain]

I've always wondered about this, which is more important, ie: which should you upgrade first in case of HL2.

I don't ask for myself, I'm just really curious. Just spend $1600 dollars on some serious upgrades. Thank you superflous scholarships

 

[crabcakes66]

Both.



...............

 

[blahblahblah]

It really depends on your system. Computers are all about balancing them out so no one component becomes a gigantic bottleneck.

 

[Roland Deschain]

damn, isn't there an easy answer to anything, damn you, damn you all to hell.

 

[Hazar]

If your cpu is somewhat decent I'd say ram.

 

[Roland Deschain]

Got a 3.0 CPU and 1024 RAM, so it would be hell of a lot easier to upgrade ram.

 

[ailevation]

:naughty: Ram is more important, it is the processing unit... bleh CPU is nothing.

 

[blahblahblah]

Got a 3.0 CPU and 1024 RAM, so it would be hell of a lot easier to upgrade ram.

If thats your CPU and RAM, I would look for other bottlenecks like your Harddrive, Video Card, possible Auido card, etc.

 

[Roland Deschain]

The only thing is I have a build in audio card, my videocard in 9800 Pro, what do audio cards go for (in Canadian dollars).

 

[kidrock450]

my CPU is a nuero net processor a learning computer. it has no need to upgrade.

 

[blahblahblah]

What type of harddrive do you have?

I am from the US so I don't know Canadian prices. But in the US a decent audio card ranges from $70 to $200.

[Edit]: Its a neural net, not neuro net. Apparently you still have some learning to do.

 

[kidrock450]

/./././././././malfuncion/././././././././.

 

[FictiousWill]

You don't actually need a processor. It's really there to make the computer look complicated on the inside. It's extra handy for scratching things like bug bites, or combing your chest hair.

 

[Roland Deschain]

Ok, I have a Maxtor 6Y 120L0 harddrive, I have absolutly no idea what that means, could somebody help me. Also, if I have a build in soundcard is that going to slow things down a lot (I can play FAr Cry just fine)

 

[Asus]

Hehe
Well, the soundcard isn't going to slow down the performance of your PC but he was just refering to things you could invest your money in to improve your gaming experience.

It's a 120GB harddrive with an UltraATA/133 interface and 2MB cache.
It's their DiamondMax Plus9 model. AFAIK

 

[Roland Deschain]

Bah, you gotta be kidding me. I really don't need 3D sound, I mean I got nice headphones and playing Far Cry I could hear every single bullet casing hitting the ground.

In the above post, is that hard-drive good or bad or are we talking average?

 

[psyno]

Average. Can you post the details of your motherboard and RAM?

 

[Roland Deschain]

Asus p4s800 and 1024 RAM, but I know those are good, since I can run Far Cry without any problems with almost everything maxed, the only thing I was uncertain was the hard-drive.

 

[psyno]

Well, your hard drive may affect load times but it won't have any effect on FPS unless you're swapping, and then you have bigger problems. What speed & latency is your RAM rated?

 

[Roland Deschain]

Ok, how do I figure that out, I know my friend showed me once but I forgot, and thank you in advance for telling me.

 

[Asus]

You can download CPUID if you wish. It's a small program that lets you know information about your CPU and Memory.

 

[psyno]

CPU-Z is a very small and effective freeware program that can report a lot of data about your system's current hardware configuration. What will be on the "Memory" tab is what I'm wondering. (A screen shot would be great).

*Edit: Yep, Asus and I are talking about the same program. CPU-Z is actually the name of it, and it comes from cpuid.com.

 

[Roland Deschain]

Ok, I got Samsung DDR-SDRAM PC2700 - 512 MB. Any good and somebody tell me what it means.