upgrading RAM or HDD

[numhtak]

Currently I am using PNY Optima 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 and a Barracuda 7200.12 SATA 3Gb/s 500GB Hard Drive.

There's technically nothing wrong with either of them, but which one would be better to upgrade, and to what? let's say price range of $150, possibly up to $200

This upgrade is for games in general, ultra settings. Games like, skyrim, league of legends, WoW, GW2 when it comes, Diablo 3

Thanks in advance


EDIT:
GIGABYTE GA-770T-USB3 AM3 AMD 770 USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
XFX HD-577X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5770 1GB 128-bit DDR5
CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-650TX 650W
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W

[Milkshake86]

Unless your upgrading to SSD the HDD you have if not faulty is fine. If you need more space no real reason to drop your old HDD just add another. Ram unless your capping usage won't really upgrade much in terms of performance. So can we get an idea of your entire pc maybe?

[Simonzi]

Get a 120gb SSD. Can be had around $150.

[Eon Drache]

I'd personally get 4GB more of RAM, which is about $20. And wait for the HDD prices to come back down to what they should be before buying. I use the same Hard Drive you have. I see no reason to upgrade it.

[numhtak]

Unless your upgrading to SSD the HDD you have if not faulty is fine. If you need more space no real reason to drop your old HDD just add another. Ram unless your capping usage won't really upgrade much in terms of performance. So can we get an idea of your entire pc maybe?

I'm not sure what SSD is, whats the benefits to it over HDD?

[Faaip]

I'm not sure what SSD is, whats the benefits to it over HDD?

its a solid state disk, no moving parts. they are around 10-15 times faster than a normal HDD. My SSD, a OCZ vertex 3 120GB benchmarks at around 550mb/s reads, 550 mb/s writes.

in comparison, a top of the line HDD sata disk can do upto 150mb/s read/writes.

so much faster. but also much more expensive. although i must admit, its worth it. the speed is very noticable and makes everything very snappy.

[jmacphee9]

like stated above, no reason to upgrade your already pretty good HDD unless you need space. the ram, can be upgraded and very cheaply at that but it wont give a a huge boost in performance. SSD is the only way to really spend the 200 if you dont want to put it into your cpu/gpu/mobo.

[BicycleMafioso]

I don't see any reason whatsoever to get more RAM. Get additional storage or an SSD.
The RAM would increase your gaming experience by 0-1% at best, and that is if you are watching five movies at the same time as you are surfing the web while you are playing.

[Mybuddyphil]

I'm using a 5400 RPM harddrive and the load times are still next to nothing compared to the Xbox 360 5 year load times. I'd definitely have to go with the RAM, or a SSD. What does the rest of your rig consist of? Surely if you're having performance issues, the bottleneck lies elsewhere.

[Milkshake86]

a 5400rpm drive is so slow like do you sit at a black screen waiting for wow to load the login screen.

[Mybuddyphil]

a 5400rpm drive is so slow like do you sit at a black screen waiting for wow to load the login screen.

Apparently it's dickhole mode for you tonight, but no, like I said, it still loads fairly quickly.

[Milkshake86]

Not being a dick but no it doesnt. This is what i would call being complacent. The time it takes a 7200rpm drive that is brand new is severely behind an ssd and 5400rpm is like a snail behind a 7200rpm. Totally complacent about the speed of your pc < the fact that it is extremely slow. I know how slow 5400rpm is and I know wow load times. Actually im pretty sure on log I could walk out of the room get a drink make a sandwhich come back and it would just have loaded into the world and not fully.

[Arachnan]

I don't see any reason whatsoever to get more RAM. Get additional storage or an SSD.
The RAM would increase your gaming experience by 0-1% at best, and that is if you are watching five movies at the same time as you are surfing the web while you are playing.

Unless you are playing All Points Bulletin! That's the only game I've seen use up to 9 GB of RAM when it's available. Before I upgraded to the system in my sig, I was using 4 GB of ram and it would only take up 1-2 GB. But now I have 16 GB it can actually take up 8-9 GB if I let it :P

Not being a dick but no it doesnt. This is what i would call being complacent. The time it takes a 7200rpm drive that is brand new is severely behind an ssd and 5400rpm is like a snail behind a 7200rpm.

That's funny, because my older computer with a 5400 RPM disk loads up WoW roughly as fast as when I was still using a 7200 RPM disk in my main computer.
Ofcourse it's (a bit) slower, but you are making it sound like it's the same difference as a HDD vs a SSD.

Oh and this:

What does the rest of your rig consist of? Surely if you're having performance issues, the bottleneck lies elsewhere.

Without that info it's hard to say what will give you the best boost for your 150-200 dollar budget.

[Redcinder]

Upgrading your PC with an SSD drive is probably the best performance upgrade you can get as a whole. The bottle neck with technology nowadays is loading times and an SSD drives cuts this down to a minimum. MUST BUY in my opinion.

[Milkshake86]

@arachnan I have a 5400rpm caviar blue for storage I have loaded wow off it and it is that terrible. 7200rpm is terrible. I even have a cheetah 15k and compared to my friends ssd its a piss ant. Complacent to the speed of loading is severe even myself Im like pft SSD my pc is fast! It so isnt. Now my cheetah sits in the HTPC which is just a pc next to my entertainment center but w/e lol I plan to get a decent SSD soon probably something small tho.

[Arachnan]

I got one of the earlier Intel SSDs when they came out, and I did notice the difference in loading speed, especially character models in big cities.
What I am trying to say is that while the 7200 and 5400RPM disks are slower, it's not as bad as you describe it to be for everyone.
I'm sure that some people crammed their HDD's full of stuff, or have tons of programs running in the background which grinds the HDD to a halt, but some keep it clean and unfragmented. Those people still get plenty of speed out of those disks to play games normally, without having to wait 5 minutes.

[Milkshake86]

My drive is like 2 months old makes no sound works perfectly and has uhhh a quarter of a gig on music on it. I defrag once a month. No matter how you slice it no 5400rpm drive is fit for gaming, 7200rpm is the bare minimum. Anyone claiming a game like wow isnt a long annoying load is just full of it. Im sure your 5400rpm drive is super fast and your prius holds a land speed record, the rest of the normies have slow 5400rpm drives mildly slow 7200rpm drives.

[numhtak]

alright, it seems me upgrading from a HDD to an SSD would be the best investment. What would be the better choice then? And if I was to leave my HDD in my desktop, do I choose to put games on the SSD and then less important things onto the HDD?

What I'm noticing is that the SSD has a much smaller storage, and not sure what I would need to look for. I was expecting to see SSD's with like 500gb for the $100-200 range and boy was I wrong haha.

updated original post with the main components, if any other info is needed I can find that out too.

[Milkshake86]

alright, it seems me upgrading from a HDD to an SSD would be the best investment. What would be the better choice then? And if I was to leave my HDD in my desktop, do I choose to put games on the SSD and then less important things onto the HDD?

What I'm noticing is that the SSD has a much smaller storage, and not sure what I would need to look for. I was expecting to see SSD's with like 500gb for the $100-200 range and boy was I wrong haha.

updated original post with the main components, if any other info is needed I can find that out too.

well no you haven't given us any more info on your system, an SSD on a p4 is a waste. So if you want gaming performance improvements we need info.

[numhtak]

well no you haven't given us any more info on your system, an SSD on a p4 is a waste. So if you want gaming performance improvements we need info.

check first post