What To Upgrade For Gaming?

In a few days Im purchasing a Dell Inspiron E1705. Im a college student and Im going to be frequently gaming. I have a little money left and I can upgrade one more thing. The question I have is what should I upgrade that will benefit my gaming? Here are all my specs so far:

Intel® Core™ Duo Proc T2250 (1.73GHz/533MHz/2 X 1MB L2 Cache)
1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz
80GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS
8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
17 inch Wide Screen XGA+ Display

Im thinking to upgrade the processor to a Intel® Core™ Duo Proc T2400 (1.83GHz/667MHz/2 X 1MB L2 Cache)
and the Ram to 1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz.

or should i just upgrade the processor by itself to Intel® Core™ Duo Proc T2500 (2GHz/667MHz/2 X 1MB L2 Cache)? or the ram by itself to 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz ?

I dont think there is a major difference between their successors but which upgrade would be better for gaming?Which will make the overall performance better?

 

RAM should be a lot more bang for your buck.

 

it totally depends on the situation.

sometimes you will see a benefit of having more ram, especially in newer titles

but a faster processor is a must have for a gamer

here is an explanation of the trade off you will see over more ram vs. cpu

Your processor and graphics card combination will determine how many frames per second you push during the game, generally, or your average fps.

More ram will help to smooth out frame rate spikes, where game play might shudder down to a very low frames per second rate for a split second

This can be seen most commonly in benchmarking moving from 512 megs to a gig of ram in most games

Both are very important, but a gig of ram is a lot anyway, and you may or may not see any improvement going from 1 gig of ram to 2 gigs (depending on the situation), you will definately see an improvement moving to a faster processor in most every situation.

Some games can certainly see benefits of 2 gigs of ram, (ie. only battlefield 2, system hog), but for other advanced games (doom 3 based games like quake 4, etc, I would definately say processing power over 2 gigs of ram)



Therefore I reccomend the processor upgrade.

 

I would go for the WUXGA display actually - you only have the WXGA+ matte display. If you don't like that, then I would upgrade the CPU to the T2500. RAM is easy enough to upgrade aftermarket, and for less than Dell charges - see www.newegg.com or www.zipzoomfly.com.

 

Hard to say. I'd agree with either RAM or CPU. (The CPU is often the bottleneck in high-end systems, and with a 7900, that'll probably be the case for you as well)

But more RAM might be a more future-proof option. As it is now, few games benefit from more than 1GB RAM, but in a year or three, you'll definitely need more RAM.

Then again, it's a lot easier to add more memory than to upgrade the CPU later on. I think I'd go with the faster CPU now, and then add another GB RAM later, when it becomes neccesary.

There's not much to be gained by upgrading the ram from 533 to 667MHz though. I wouldn't bother with that.

 

1. RAM
2. Faster HD
3. Better Screen

Ram would offer most value for money. HD is more expensive and screen is tricky to do on your own further down the line.

 

If you can get a gig of RAM NOT dual channel, I'd upgrade the processor. Then when you save up some more cash, you can just pop another gig stick into it and have 2GB, dual-channel. At least that's my inclination. CPU's and screens are hard to upgrade aftermarket. RAM is easy.

 

Other posts that I've seen indicate that getting WUXGA would actually NOT be the way to go. Reason being is, with a smaller native resolution you can tax the GPU to increase AA and detail levels. So getting the upgraded screen would give you a better resolution, but there's a possiblity of not maxing out settings on your games. Did I read something wrong or is the difference between say 4xAA and 8xAA so marginal that I'm barking up the wrong tree?

 

The WUXGA screen offers higher quality and better contrast/brightness. Also, the increased resolution will offer a lot more screen real estate. The resolution can always be turned down.
I wouldn't touch 8X AA unless you had a dual-graphics card SLI desktop. 4X AA wouldn't be possible at a WUXGA resolution, but you don't need it anyway. Like I said, the resolution can always be turned down if the card can't handle the game at WUXGA.

 

Do my eyes decieve me I always thought Chaz was a big fan of the "WUXGA is too much" theory??!

But yeah, the resolution can ALWAYS be turned down on the WUXGA, it can NEVER be turned up on the WXGA. And I think with the 7900GS (especially if you are into OCing) you can run most games at 1920x1200, so why not make the most of that nice GPU??

That being said, DON'T upgrade the RAM. It is the best thing you can upgrade, but can be done for MUCH cheaper elseware, and the hardest thing you have to do is unscrew 2 screws.

The CPU I wouldn't go nuts on. The 1.83Ghz should be fine. Remember, you will be able to upgrade to Merom in what... a few days?? So that is always an option, and everything after the 2.0Ghz becomes unnecessarily expensive.

So I would go:
1. Screen (why have a good GPU if you can't run in a good res anyway??)
2. CPU
3. RAM

But that is ONLY because when you get the money I think you should upgrade the RAM yourself

 

Hey do you think I would be able to play games like Battlefield 2, FEAR, Half-Life 2, Oblivion with these specs is my main question...

17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen UXGA Display with TrueLife™ (the upgrade you suggested)

Intel® Core™ Duo Proc T2250 (1.73GHz/533MHz/2 X 1MB L2 Cache)
1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS


So having that screen would be better for gaming?
Im sorry I dont know that much about computers. I know i can buy ram for cheaper and its easy to upgrade so I cancelled that choice out.Should I upgrade to 1.83 GHz, is it that important? Im tryin to save money by cuttin as much as I can. While being able to play these games at higher settings with good performance.