Best upgrade I could get for $200 ???

[Zspitfire04]

I have a custom-built, Intel Pentium 4 CPU (3 GHz), an NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS Graphics card, an ECS 945P-A Mobo, DDR2 PC2 512 MB of RAM. I have a limited budget of $200 to improve my desktop, any suggestions/links would be VERY helpful. THANKS!

[elija]

You don't say what your hard disk is, but assuming it is sensible,
I would go for extra ram. It is the easiest way to get a significant
performance boost.

That is true regardless of what OS you are running. I would suggest
upping it to at least 1gb.

[bigtomrodney]

Looking at your system you should go for RAM first and foremost.

With that said you could easily get a cheap dual core system going particularly if you look at AMD. Although the dollar is worth a lot less than the Euro at the moment tech prices are usually on pair...check out this system for €245

Komplett.ie - Upgrade Kit AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+, Asus M2A-VM HDMI, 2048MB

The catch would be if you graphics card is AGP rather than PCI-X or PCI you would need to replace that too.

[Zspitfire04]

My graphics card uses PCI-E and my Hard drive is a Hitachi Dekstar. Nothing Speical at all, 80 GB. Heres a link to the hard drive: Newegg.com - HITACHI Deskstar 7K80 HDS728080PLA380 (0A30356) 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

[bigtomrodney]

In that case you could get 2GB of RAM and a 500GB HDD for the $200...

[fingal]

I agree with the RAM option. Get the best you can find for the money.

[valemon]

I agree with ram upgrade too. What I think is that since your mobo has 775 socket you could also buy a core duo processor (Dual Core 2180 s775/2,00GHz would be a good idea).

[FeestBijtje]

I would go for the RAM upgrade + Disk space. That greeatly improves your hardware.

[pcxman]

Try going to [url=http://www.pricewatch.com]

[techieMoe]

I agree with the consensus here: RAM first, then a larger harddrive if you can afford it. I don't see why you couldn't pick up 2GB of RAM and a nice sized harddrive for $200.