upgrade options and ram question
 

Hey all

Got a X2 4400 system last feb and now need more speed with 2142 out and crysis coming i want better performance without having to shell out money for an all new system. I'm currently running:

AMD X2 4400
EPOX 939 non SLI board
2GB Adata 333mhz ram (4x 512MB sticks)
Nvidia 7800GT
also have swiftech water cooler on the cpu
Win Media Center 05

What would be the best route to go for upgrade? I've heard that the 939 boards won't run more then 2GB of ram under windows OS is this true? i was thinking about getting a 1GB stick and getting myself up to 2.5GB then get another stick in feb to get me to 3GB, would this even be possible with my current config? If not does anyone know a better way to get more performance and eye candy out of my games? I woulda gotten the sli board but i heard that you can only see a difference if you have a nice widescreen display, i'm still running my old NEC multisync CRT.

any suggestions would be welcome

-Ray

I would go for 2x1gb memory kit, it will alllow PC3200/400 speed which gives you a nice boost;

then a GPU upgrade in spring next year (2007) when both nvidia/ati are their with next generation cards;

your CPU will last you another year EASILY with high end settings; for high resolution I would suggest only GPU upgrade, and not go SLI unless you directly invest in the highest end SLI (8800GTX) otherwise it's a waste of money in my humble opinion.

2gb (2x1gb) is the sweet spot for most systems, mixing different size sticks will decrease performance (or not run at all) so I would sell those 4 sticks and get 2x1gb modules at , at least PC3200 speed, if you want OC headroom get some PC4000 or higher rated AMD memory