I am Uneducated Computer geek in need of computer education

[Jylt]

Hello, i am planning a full system format, upgrade to Win7 and installing 8gbs ram in the coming weeks and my system will have:

Dell XPS 720
Win7 home x64
intel q6600 Quad CPU 2.4ghz
8gbs 800mhz ram
Asus ATI 5850 Direct CU
Xtreme gamer fatal1ty soundcard
2x 500gb
1 is a Seagate 350064 1AS and the other Western Digital WDC WD50 00AAKS 75YGA

my hard drives are 4/5 years old and am wondering if they will affect performance.

also i was wondering would it be worth installing steam and my games on the non OS system hard drive to help performance. and which one i should select for my OS drive. I Have most Issues with Team Fortress 2

Please could you help?

Thanks, John

 

[mibix19]

hi. If it was me I would replace the hard drives if they are4/5 years old to help prevent hard drive failure

 

[Jylt]

Really? i ran every test i could find on the internet and they all came back fine. if someone could second that, i may just do that, any recommendations?

 

[inzone]

A good setup to go with is a SSD for the OS and a sata3 hdd (1 tb) for the rest. The SSD should be around 120gb so that you could put the OS and the current game you are playing and the rest on the hdd. The sata 3 hdd would be helpful if you had a MB with sata 3 ports , if you get a sata 2 hdd then try to get a larger cache , hdd's come with 16mb , 32mb and 64mb cache's.

 

[Jylt]

Thanks inzone, this seems like a good idea, just trying to find out if my motherboard will support these drives 🙁