"Brian Link" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Just bought an Abit KD7A, and a new Seagate 7200rpm 60g HD. I used the
> 1gig Athlon from my old mainboard, and put a 512M PC2700 memory module
> in.
>
> I'd like to boost the performance of the machine a bit, mostly for
> multitasking, redraws, and gaming wouldn't hurt. I've only got a 100
> bucks left to spend.. should I spring for another 512 module, or get a
> faster Athlon?
>
> BLink
> Brian Link in St. Paul
> ----------------------
> "Just because we have chiseled abs and stunning features,
> doesn't mean that we too can't not die in a freak gasoline fight
> accident."

Depends a little on your OS, but I would go for a faster CPU.

Clive

Brian Link wrote:
>
> Just bought an Abit KD7A, and a new Seagate 7200rpm 60g HD. I used the
> 1gig Athlon from my old mainboard, and put a 512M PC2700 memory module
> in.
>
> I'd like to boost the performance of the machine a bit, mostly for
> multitasking, redraws, and gaming wouldn't hurt. I've only got a 100
> bucks left to spend.. should I spring for another 512 module, or get a
> faster Athlon?

I was in the same situation and I just bought a faster cpu, for what
that's worth.

Brian Link wrote:
> Just bought an Abit KD7A, and a new Seagate 7200rpm 60g HD. I used the
> 1gig Athlon from my old mainboard, and put a 512M PC2700 memory module
> in.
>
> I'd like to boost the performance of the machine a bit, mostly for
> multitasking, redraws, and gaming wouldn't hurt. I've only got a 100
> bucks left to spend.. should I spring for another 512 module, or get a
> faster Athlon?
>
> BLink
> Brian Link in St. Paul
> ----------------------
> "Just because we have chiseled abs and stunning features,
> doesn't mean that we too can't not die in a freak gasoline fight
> accident."

Tough call. A gig of memory is sweet, but an Athlon XP 2600+ will give
you a noticeable boost...I'd go the CPU (but I'm not familiar with that
motherboard, but I assume you are and know what CPUs it can take).

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Brian Link wrote:

> I'd like to boost the performance of the machine a bit, mostly for
> multitasking, redraws, and gaming wouldn't hurt. I've only got a 100
> bucks left to spend.. should I spring for another 512 module, or get a
> faster Athlon?

the serious thing would be try to measure things and find your bottlenecks.

which os? i mostly run unixes, so i'd use "top" to see if i was hitting
swap, and to see what sorts of jobs pegged by cpu for long. if neither of
those things happen, maybe the money should be spent on a raid? there used
to be an old "rule" that most people underspend on disks in workstations.
it seems to me that should get more true as we concentrate more storage on a
single spindle. gotta move that one arm to seek for all files in
succession.

oh wait, you said games, can't be a unix ;-). maybe the task manager can
give you enough of an idea.

as a pure guess, i'd think cpu would be the way to go ... unless you think
your slow tasks could be disk bound.

Lefty wrote:
> Brian Link wrote:
>
>
>>I'd like to boost the performance of the machine a bit, mostly for
>>multitasking, redraws, and gaming wouldn't hurt. I've only got a 100
>>bucks left to spend.. should I spring for another 512 module, or get a
>>faster Athlon?
>
>
> the serious thing would be try to measure things and find your bottlenecks.
>
> which os? i mostly run unixes, so i'd use "top" to see if i was hitting
> swap, and to see what sorts of jobs pegged by cpu for long.

I just tried that command, and it says 10% of mym memory is being used
for running X...but it also says that 497mb out of 512mb of memory is
used...what the?? heh Am I interpretting this wrong? :-)

> if neither of
> those things happen, maybe the money should be spent on a raid? there used
> to be an old "rule" that most people underspend on disks in workstations.
> it seems to me that should get more true as we concentrate more storage on a
> single spindle. gotta move that one arm to seek for all files in
> succession.
>
> oh wait, you said games, can't be a unix ;-). maybe the task manager can
> give you enough of an idea.
>
> as a pure guess, i'd think cpu would be the way to go ... unless you think
> your slow tasks could be disk bound.
>
>


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spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo

I think that most windows OS's use as much memory you have until something else wants it...then passes the ram to the requesting
program and uses the swap file for system use.


"Sooky Grumper" <sookygrumper@fishies_.com> wrote in message news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Lefty wrote:
> > Brian Link wrote:
> >
> >
> >>I'd like to boost the performance of the machine a bit, mostly for
> >>multitasking, redraws, and gaming wouldn't hurt. I've only got a 100
> >>bucks left to spend.. should I spring for another 512 module, or get a
> >>faster Athlon?
> >
> >
> > the serious thing would be try to measure things and find your bottlenecks.
> >
> > which os? i mostly run unixes, so i'd use "top" to see if i was hitting
> > swap, and to see what sorts of jobs pegged by cpu for long.
>
> I just tried that command, and it says 10% of mym memory is being used
> for running X...but it also says that 497mb out of 512mb of memory is
> used...what the?? heh Am I interpretting this wrong? :-)
>
> > if neither of
> > those things happen, maybe the money should be spent on a raid? there used
> > to be an old "rule" that most people underspend on disks in workstations.
> > it seems to me that should get more true as we concentrate more storage on a
> > single spindle. gotta move that one arm to seek for all files in
> > succession.
> >
> > oh wait, you said games, can't be a unix ;-). maybe the task manager can
> > give you enough of an idea.
> >
> > as a pure guess, i'd think cpu would be the way to go ... unless you think
> > your slow tasks could be disk bound.
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo
>

Sooky Grumper wrote:
> Lefty wrote:

>> which os? i mostly run unixes, so i'd use "top" to see if i was
>> hitting swap, and to see what sorts of jobs pegged by cpu for long.
>
> I just tried that command, and it says 10% of mym memory is being used
> for running X...but it also says that 497mb out of 512mb of memory is
> used...what the?? heh Am I interpretting this wrong? :-)

can you post the first few lines? mine looks like this right now ... LOL i
forgot i was running windows! (now, that is funny)

here's an old one snagged off another post:

8:00pm up 1:22, 0 users, load average: 2.84, 2.07, 1.54
71 processes: 65 sleeping, 5 running, 1 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU0 states: 43.0% user, 56.0% system, 41.0% nice, 0.0% idle
CPU1 states: 40.0% user, 59.0% system, 40.0% nice, 0.0% idle
Mem: 257480K av, 64600K used, 192880K free, 70828K shrd, 12404K buff
Swap: 265032K av, 0K used, 265032K free 24432K cached

the two most important things imo are the "swap" used and the "idle"
percentage. this guy has his system pegged (no idle time, high load
average), but he hasn't hit swap (0K used). if this was a normal situation,
he could benefit from a faster cpu. more memory wouldn't make him go faster
because he hasn't run out.

i don't think anyone normally stays at 0% idle though. generally it will go
up when you do something intensive and then fall way off ... modern systems
in a desktop role are typically 95% idle when doing stuff like typing usenet
posts.

JAD wrote:
> I think that most windows OS's use as much memory you have until
> something else wants it...then passes the ram to the requesting
> program and uses the swap file for system use.

yeah, we could probably talk details, but if you are swapping a lot that is
a reason to get more memory.

i thought of something after the last post. in a unix system, if you have a
"lot" of free memory (before you hit swap) the system will slup it up for
use as disk buffers. that will speed you up as well.

so maybe looking at free mem, and the amount dedicated to "buff" will hlep
too.

Lefty wrote:
> Sooky Grumper wrote:
>
>>Lefty wrote:
>
>
>>>which os? i mostly run unixes, so i'd use "top" to see if i was
>>>hitting swap, and to see what sorts of jobs pegged by cpu for long.
>>
>>I just tried that command, and it says 10% of mym memory is being used
>>for running X...but it also says that 497mb out of 512mb of memory is
>>used...what the?? heh Am I interpretting this wrong? :-)
>
>
> can you post the first few lines? mine looks like this right now ... LOL i
> forgot i was running windows! (now, that is funny)
>
> here's an old one snagged off another post:
>
> 8:00pm up 1:22, 0 users, load average: 2.84, 2.07, 1.54
> 71 processes: 65 sleeping, 5 running, 1 zombie, 0 stopped
> CPU0 states: 43.0% user, 56.0% system, 41.0% nice, 0.0% idle
> CPU1 states: 40.0% user, 59.0% system, 40.0% nice, 0.0% idle
> Mem: 257480K av, 64600K used, 192880K free, 70828K shrd, 12404K buff
> Swap: 265032K av, 0K used, 265032K free 24432K cached
>
> the two most important things imo are the "swap" used and the "idle"
> percentage. this guy has his system pegged (no idle time, high load
> average), but he hasn't hit swap (0K used). if this was a normal situation,
> he could benefit from a faster cpu. more memory wouldn't make him go faster
> because he hasn't run out.
>
> i don't think anyone normally stays at 0% idle though. generally it will go
> up when you do something intensive and then fall way off ... modern systems
> in a desktop role are typically 95% idle when doing stuff like typing usenet
> posts.
>
>

12:45am up 1 day, 8:25, 1 user, load average: 0.12, 0.09, 0.04
89 processes: 87 sleeping, 2 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states: 1.2% user, 0.0% system, 0.0% nice, 98.8% idle
Mem: 513984K av, 500620K used, 13364K free, 0K shrd, 110720K buff
Swap: 1020088K av, 3052K used, 1017036K free 225432K cached

--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo

Sooky Grumper wrote:
> Lefty wrote:
>
>> Sooky Grumper wrote:
>>
>>> Lefty wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>> which os? i mostly run unixes, so i'd use "top" to see if i was
>>>> hitting swap, and to see what sorts of jobs pegged by cpu for long.
>>>
>>>
>>> I just tried that command, and it says 10% of mym memory is being used
>>> for running X...but it also says that 497mb out of 512mb of memory is
>>> used...what the?? heh Am I interpretting this wrong? :-)
>>
>>
>>
>> can you post the first few lines? mine looks like this right now ...
>> LOL i
>> forgot i was running windows! (now, that is funny)
>>
>> here's an old one snagged off another post:
>>
>> 8:00pm up 1:22, 0 users, load average: 2.84, 2.07, 1.54
>> 71 processes: 65 sleeping, 5 running, 1 zombie, 0 stopped
>> CPU0 states: 43.0% user, 56.0% system, 41.0% nice, 0.0% idle
>> CPU1 states: 40.0% user, 59.0% system, 40.0% nice, 0.0% idle
>> Mem: 257480K av, 64600K used, 192880K free, 70828K shrd, 12404K buff
>> Swap: 265032K av, 0K used, 265032K free 24432K cached
>>
>> the two most important things imo are the "swap" used and the "idle"
>> percentage. this guy has his system pegged (no idle time, high load
>> average), but he hasn't hit swap (0K used). if this was a normal
>> situation,
>> he could benefit from a faster cpu. more memory wouldn't make him go
>> faster
>> because he hasn't run out.
>>
>> i don't think anyone normally stays at 0% idle though. generally it
>> will go
>> up when you do something intensive and then fall way off ... modern
>> systems
>> in a desktop role are typically 95% idle when doing stuff like typing
>> usenet
>> posts.
>>
>>
>
> 12:45am up 1 day, 8:25, 1 user, load average: 0.12, 0.09, 0.04
> 89 processes: 87 sleeping, 2 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
> CPU states: 1.2% user, 0.0% system, 0.0% nice, 98.8% idle
> Mem: 513984K av, 500620K used, 13364K free, 0K shrd, 110720K buff
> Swap: 1020088K av, 3052K used, 1017036K free 225432K cached
>

PS - I'm running rehat 8, as a regular user, with X and mozilla as the
major processes running...

--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo