Computer upgrades

[WS| Lord T]

So I've made my decision on a pretty decent hard drive. A SATA Western Digital 160GB. I'm getting it from Newegg.com and it comes with a pretty decent warranty, 3 years. But I have $70 left over (After bills and the hard drive) and I'd like to try and upgrade my computer a little too. I want to know what kind of hardware ya'll think I should get.

Here are my specs:
- ECT Motherboard w/ PCI-E (PCI express) (I'd have to look up that information to give more detail)
- 1 2GB DDR2 800 RAM
- Intel Pentium Dual-Core 2.6 GHz
- On-Board everything
- 50 GB Secondary Hard Drive (IDE)

I want to make my computer more powerful to play some more games. Still running XP Pro, and should still be running it after my new hard drive is installed.

Any suggestions of what to throw in there?

[SilentShadow]

not gonna find one for 70$ but a decent graphics card would help, like a geforce 9600 i think is the latest one atm

[WS| o19]

So I've made my decision on a pretty decent hard drive. A SATA Western Digital 160GB. I'm getting it from Newegg.com and it comes with a pretty decent warranty, 3 years. But I have $70 left over (After bills and the hard drive) and I'd like to try and upgrade my computer a little too. I want to know what kind of hardware ya'll think I should get.

Here are my specs:
- ECT Motherboard w/ PCI-E (PCI express) (I'd have to look up that information to give more detail)
- 1 2GB DDR2 800 RAM
- Intel Pentium Dual-Core 2.6 GHz
- On-Board everything
- 50 GB Secondary Hard Drive (IDE)

I want to make my computer more powerful to play some more games. Still running XP Pro, and should still be running it after my new hard drive is installed.

Any suggestions of what to throw in there?

The capacity of your hard drive has nothing to do with how fast your computer operates.

You absolutely need to get a dedicated video card.

Luckily, there are plenty of good video cards for under $70:

GIGABYTE GeForce 9500 GT - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125261

SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4670 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102855

not gonna find one for 70$ but a decent graphics card would help, like a geforce 9600 i think is the latest one atm

The 9600 series [8600 series upgrade] was released in 2008.  It is FAR from the latest card released.

The top of the line cards right now are the GeForce GTX 295 [NVIDIA] and the HD 5970 [ATI].

[WS| Lord T]

The capacity of your hard drive has nothing to do with how fast your computer operates.

Oh I know this, but my current hard drive is dying (it's an 80GB and only has 52GB total available) Gotta be able to save right?

Luckily, there are plenty of good video cards for under $70:

GIGABYTE GeForce 9500 GT - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125261

SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4670 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102855

I'll look into getting these. Aren't exactly in my budget this much to bundle (Would like some spending cash) so I'll take a quick peek at them when I can. But I must say, I've had fond memories of GeForce graphics. Least in the olden days.

[Mr. Hate]

I just sold a GeForce 9800GT for 70$ ... bad timing.

If i were you I'd get more memory and go up to 4GB or more.  You'll then be able to get rid of your swap file and that would probably your best bang for the buck upgrade.

[[PRO]P1RATE]

You should look into saving up and just upgrading everything....