[Ian_Bullock]

Hi,
I've got an almost 3 year old dual 2.0Ghz G5 powermac, with 1GB ram and a 250GB hard drive, and the worst graphics card that I could get (figured I'd save the money on the graphics card to get a better base unit for later upgrading). I use lots and lots of safari windows, iTunes, Word, iPhoto and not much else to be honest - bit of a waste of all that computing power I know, but I don't use Photoshop or Final Cut anymore since I changed jobs.

I'm noticing that I'm beginning to get a lag when using all my programs - not much, only 5 seconds or so, but more than I used to, when everything opened instantaneously. What I'm wanting to know is which would be a better investment out of these two options? I'm getting a new 500GB hard drive anyway, and moving all the music, films, and photos over to that to free up the system drive. But with my remaining money. should I upgrade the ram to 3GB, which will cost £108 ($200) from Crucial, or should I wait till I can afford a X800XT 250mb card, which is about £250 ($450ish)? Which will boost my system better for the cost, bearing in mind I don't think I'm using programs that particularly use a graphics card and that safari is a real ram hog?

[Big Mac]

Ram. Why? Your graphics card has nothing to do with the slow down, and your hard drive probably does not either. It's a lack of RAM and the VM paging that occurs as a result.

[Nivag]

I'll 2nd the Ram option, also how much free space do you have left on your HD?

[Ian_Bullock]

not much left on my hard drive, which was the reason for getting a bigger second drive and moving the non-system files onto it. It's got 15GB left out of 250GB. Thanks a lot for the help, just wanted to confirm it before I press the "buy" button on crucial! Cheers, Ian

[Big Mac]

15GB is low but not critically so. You can get a cheap second drive to free space on your main, but the RAM is more important.

[Ian_Bullock]

And just to check quickly, seeing as the crucial website is down, does anyone know of any cheaper UK based websites? Wasn't sure if £108 is a good buy or not - certainly seems cheaper than it used to be a year or so ago...

[reader50]

I agree, more RAM. 1 GB isn't as big as it used to be.

You've operated your HD at above 90% capacity for awhile, it will have become heavily fragmented by now. Once you free up space by moving stuff to the new HD, Tiger will start fixing most of the fragmentation. So yes, you are right about needing more HD space too.

If you have to choose, get the HD space first and the RAM when you can afford it. The VM system will work fine if the HD isn't near capacity, and your HD usage isn't likely to go down. Operating near the limit increases your chances of directory corruption, and makes it harder for utilities to recover lost data.

[boston_errol]

I would do 2 upgrades.

The RAM to 3GB is your priority.

The next thing you could do is set up a RAID system that would make read times much faster from your hard drive. However, I would also get one of those PCI-X internal SATA cards and a G5 Jive (or something similar) system to add more hard drive space since the RAID boot will loose some reliability.

[Nivag]

Originally Posted by Ian_Bullock 

And just to check quickly, seeing as the crucial website is down, does anyone know of any cheaper UK based websites? Wasn't sure if £108 is a good buy or not - certainly seems cheaper than it used to be a year or so ago...

try here and follow the links to buy, but don't choose WStore, a bit more in price

Kingston Technology Company - Technology Homepage - Where To Go To Find Memory

or once you know the product code of the ram you want to buy search for it here ebuyer.com - the UK's largest independent online retailer of computers, components, electronics, MP3 Players,cameras, televisions, DVD Players, car audio, software and more... it maybe cheaper - ebuyer is also a good place to get Hard Drives as well.

There might be cheaper places if you have time to search but i find ebuyer is fairly keen on prices.