upgrade advise

[mlc]

Current setup includes:
A7N8X-dlx 1.04 running XP2500 (no OC)
2x256 XMS Corsair PC3200C2PT
2 standard IDE drives
MSI FX5200 128 bit graphics card
mitsubishi Diamond plus 9i CRT monitor

Wondering what my next step should be in terms of improving my setup .. The system is used primarily for graphic design work .. using Photoshop, Illustrator, Corel Draw, etc.....

I know my graphics card is weak ...but I don't use it for gaming.. would an upgrade to something like a 6600GT chipset improve the visuals using these programs.. or would a card upgrade only benefit a gamer ??

Secondly .. in terms of memory... is the half a gig sufficient.. or would adding a third stick to boost it to 1 GIG be noticable ?

Also considering hard drives.. and moving to SATA.. but most of the stuff I've read makes me wonder if I would see any real noticable improvement

Opinions welcome !!

[Midknyte]

getting a 6600 wouldn't help the 2D that much.

512 is ok, but 1GB is better for graphics programs. generally more is better.

you won't see much just going to SATA. you need to look at the other specs like rotational speed, cache size, etc.

[widget2003]

yeah a RAM upgrade would provide you with the most noticable performance increase, followed by CPU upgrade, hard drive upgrade wouldn't create much performace increase i couldn't imagine

[mlc]

thanks for the input ......

adding another half a gig of memory will definitely be on my list

what type of processor upgrade would be fairly noticable? would I need to move towards an AMD 64 chip to see something significant (which means new motherboard, etc) .... or would going to something like an xp3000 or 3200 provide a decent improvement ?

I've tried a few overclocks with my xp2500.. but ran into stablility issues ... no doubt due to the fussiness of the A7n8x 1.04 revision...

[Rugor]

If you're going to get a new video card for 2D you may want to look into Matrox. As to CPU. I wouldn't bother with an upgrade unless to an Athlon64. The RAM would help regardless.

[RockNRoll]

I think for 2d stuff your GFX card is fine. It's fairly new.

All the newer ones are more leaned towards gaming and 3d, while still having the 2d quality pretty much the same.

The most that is changed with newer gfx cards is the chipset architechture for 3D. Although the newer architechture still makes 2d stuff like certain games go faster, but I think you're set with the GFX.:D

Anybody please correct me if I have told an untruth. LOL.

[missiveusa]

The only CPU upgrade that would provide noticable performance boost is AMD 64. Prices have come down to Earth on Socket 939 chips up to the 3500+. Runs great on DDR PC 3200, too!

Socket 939 has a long upgrade path ahead of it, plus the expected benefit from 64-bit Windows OS release.