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    What to upgrade?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by lowlymarine, May 28, 2005.

  1. lowlymarine

    lowlymarine Notebook Deity

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    I'm thinking of putting down some money to do an upgrade for my Gateway 7422GX. The things I have in mind:

    1)Upgrade to 100GB 7200RPM Hard drive ($120)
    2)Upgrade to 1.5GB of RAM ($230)
    3)Upgrade to Mobile Athlon 64 3700+ processor ($350)
    4)Add 24-bit SoundBlaster Audigy PCMCIA Sound Card ($125)

    Obviously I cannot afford to do all (or really more than one) of these. I'm leaning more towards 1 or 4 right now. I have a couple of questions:

    1. If I upgrade the hard drive, is there any (preferably low-cost) way to keep the entire contents of my existing hard drive, upgrading only the HD Driver (a la imaging it).
    2. The processor upgrade should concievably be possible...I've read about it being done in similar computers, and the 7426GX that uses the 3700+ processor uses the same case, motherboard, and cooling system. But is it really feasable?
    3. Would the sound card have any difference on performance? It seems like it should, since I get some slowdown while using EAX and other advanced audio settings, but I'm not sure if that's what is causing it.

    So what should it be?

    --------------------
    Gateway 7422GX: AMD Athlon 64 3400+, 1024MB DDR RAM, 64MB Mobility RADEON 9600

    AVERATEC AV3270-EH1: AMD Mobile Sempron 2800+, 512MB DRR RAM, 64MB (shared) S3G Unichrome
     
    lowlymarine, May 28, 2005
    #1
  2. Gargoyle

    Gargoyle Notebook Evangelist

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    Hell your set up looks great as it is. The only thing I would upgraded you cant the video card.
    But if you want to spend some money get the 100G HD and buy a external case for your old one. and yes there is a way to image it I remember reading about it on this site you may want to do a search if someone dont reply. I plan on doing this down the road to.

    I will be so happy when they finally make it so you can swap out components like I can in my desktop.
     
    Gargoyle, May 28, 2005
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