New RAM, Hard Drive, Video Card

[swpalace]

I am going to buy 256mb of RAM, 80 GB of Hard Drive, and a new video card. Where should I buy these from? Whats a good price? And where can I learn to install these?

[satis]

depends what's around you, or if you're willing to buy online. If buying online is your thing, check out

http://www.pricewatch.com

Don't expect prices anywhere that good in a retail store. I get most of my hardware at Fry's electronics, personally, but I don't know if you have one of those in your vicinity.

256MB of RAM... really depends on the quality and speed. I mean, pc100 cas3 OEM stuff will be cheap. Pricewatch has it for $29, though it'll probably be twice that at most stores (maybe). On the other hand, 256MB of the high-end, cas2 DDR 400 (or more) is gonna run you a nice chunk. I got a 512MB DIMM of pc2700 (DDR 333) for about $100.

80GB HD.... you can probably find that for between $60-90. Really high-end stuff is more expensive, of course. Alot depends on the brand, as well. Personally I'm a Western Digital fan.. I really liked Maxtor until I had some issues with one of those drives. :/

Video Card... that totally depends on the quality. I mean, you could get a top-of-the-line GeForceFX 5900 (or whatever the new stuff is) for upwards of $300-$400... or get 2-year-old tech for $50 or less.

[swpalace]

Im going to be using this stuff for editing videos. Im only 14 and unemployed so I cant spend to much money. I will be getting a job in about 3 months though. I dont know anything about what video cards are good, which kind of RAM I need, or what type of Hard Drive I should get. Im running a Hewlett Packard Pavilion PC, with 12gb of HD and 127mb of RAM. I dont know what kind of video card, if any I have. Should I just use the add/remove hardware list to find out what card I have?

[B&T]

Before you go upgrading your memory and drives for video editing, what is the processor in your PC? Based on the 12GB HD I am guessing this is an old machine. Upgrading the machine may not get what you want - we would not want to see you throw money away.

[bdoc]

http://www.newegg.com seems to have some decent pricing, not quite wholesale rates, but they seem to be decent.

Editing digital video can be fairly hardware intensive depending on what programs you're planning to use, and as B&T said, it may not be worth upgrading an older machine to get it up to par for intensive video editing.

[XJnick]

Hi,

I always buy parts from Tiger Direct (http://www.tigerdirect.com) . They usually have much cheaper prices than stores in my area. But their product lines change frequently, so if you find a good deal, don't wait too long to buy it :D.

[XJnick]

Also for Video Cards I feel you can't go wrong with a genuine ATI card. They cost more than most other brands but you get what you pay for :D

[satis]

yea, like others said your processor is a major issue. When it comes to video cards, the bottleneck is either at the processor, or the video card. The graphics card you want really depends heavily on what your CPU can push.

As far as RAM... is it DDR, or PC100? I don't think any OEM computer runs high-grade RAM, so more than likely it's PC100 if it's not DDR. All this stuff should be in your manual. If you supply a model number, we could probably look it up for you.

With 128MB, more would definetely help. If you're on a limited budget, I'd recommend this more than the vid card. Hard drive, of course, is a separate issue.

oh, btw, be careful with Tiger Direct. I had a friend that ordered a (then) high-end video card from there, and the card he got was blown. It took him a considerable amount of time and heartache to get that straightened out. Not saying they're unreliable, just be forewarned.

and just for the record, I'm an nVidia fanboy. :D

[swpalace]

The computer is about 2 years old. I dont know what processor it has, I dont really pay attention to it, because Ive enevr upgraded anything in it because it is a family compture. I dont even know if my mom will let me do this because it might affect the warranty we have. If I do put all this stuff in, I can always take it out to put in a different computer right?

[satis]

yes, you can always transplant. Well, the hard drive and video card, at least. If your computer's 2 years old, then I'm certain it's running PC100 RAM...anything newer will be running DDR, so you can't really move the RAM. Still, RAM's pretty cheap, so that's not a big loss.

Your computer may not have an AGP slot, though. You'd need to find out before you go buy a card. If it doesn't have an AGP slot, then you're pretty much out of luck as far as video cards go. There's some PCI ones, but anything with any real performance nowadays is AGP.

[(jj)]

Something that should be checked BEFORE you go out and spend money on upgrade parts. Read the owners manual!!!

Many older HP's (and others) are limited to what you can upgrade. As Satis pointed out, the computer may not even have an AGP slot for video and it may have a built in video controller which you may or may not be able to disable.

You need to find out if there are any spare (empty) memory slots before buying new memory sticks. Some HP's only had 2 slots to start with.

Some older computers are limited to what size hard drive can be installed. Another thing which the owners manual should tell you.

You might be further ahead to save up your pennies and buy a newer computer :)

[satis]

or build a new computer. :)

Buying an OEM computer is cheaper than building one, period. I can't build a crappy computer for $600, much less what the big manufacturers are selling at that price.

However, if you build your own, you're guaranteed quality parts and upgradeability. Most motherboards you can buy have 4 DIMM slots, AGP, and 4 or more PCI slots. Many come with onboard RAID controllers too, so you can actually have more than 4 IDE devices. Cases you buy can be as big as you want, so you can fit all kinds of new hardware on there. I had a problem with a Compaq that I was trying to put another HD in.... there was an IDE port open, but no room in the case! hehe.

Also, you can build a fairly inexpensive system with cheap parts, and then upgrade it as you go. By the time you get the whole thing upgraded, you've basically got enough spare parts to build another computer. That's what I did the last time I built one... I had upgraded my then-current system enough times that I had spare hard drives, a video card, a sound card, cd-rom, and a network card. I just had to buy case, motherboard, processor, RAM and a floppy drive and I was good. I basically ended up spending about $500 to build a really nice system, though I probably could've skimped and gotten away with about $300.

Anyway, it's something to keep in mind.