Re: Upgrade advice needed

"Banana" <banana6443@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:CradnUfl65noFHHVnZ2dnUVZ8qrinZ2d@bt.com...
> Hello,
>
> I have a system that is about 3 or 4 years old now and is quite a bit out
> of date (in computer years). The specs are at the foot of my post.
>
> It was originally purchased as a 'gaming machine' and I still play some
> fairly gfx-intensive titles on it, like Crysis, FSX and so on.
>
> I'd love to spend a big bunch of notes on a new system but, alas, I don't
> have much; only about £100 ($174)!
>
> With that in mind, looking at my spec, what part of the system would *you*
> upgrade?

Everything you need to know about your motherboard is on the page you linked
to.

> http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?...no=&prod_no=154
> Processor: Intel Pentium 4 CPU 560 3.60GHz with HT
> 1GB RAM (2 x 500MB DDR1 400MHz)
> Video Card: (EVGA) GeForce 7950 GX2 'Superclocked'
> Western Digital SE Caviar 200GB SATA[*]

For £100, I don't think you can improve your performance hugely as you would
need to buy expensive parts to replace the fast stuff that you already have.
You could hunt around ebay for a 3.6 or 3.8 P4. There are some 3.6s for
about £60 and some 3.8s for about £80, but your motherboard won't take the
core2Duo parts and you won't get a (decent) new processor and board for
£100. A 3.6 or 3.8 P4 will up your performance by 20%-30%. You could even
consider a more powerful cooling system and look at overclocking. Not sure
how well your motherboard would overclock though - research that on google.

You can't afford a faster GFX card. Simple as that!

If it were me, I would definitely get more RAM as Priority 1. 1GB will be
holding back load times etc on some games and potentially slowing multiple
application work. Your Motherboard will take DDR2 at either 400 or 533, so
you could fill it with a pair of 1GB DDR2-533 DIMMS. I have no problems
personally in buying stuff from ebay shops and for this RAM I would
recommend you do just that (or whereever is cheapest). I don't personally
think you will see any performance improvement by quibling over CAS timings
on the RAM at this level. You could put your existing DDR memory on ebay.
Sell it as a 'matched pair' (asuming it is!) and you will get more interest,
although DDR is old now, so don't expect more than a tenner! If you upgrade
your processor, you could also sell that, probably for a similar price. With
the extra money, why not consider a newer, faster hard disk. You could pick
up a fast 500Gig Samsung or WD for £40-50.

"GT" <ContactGT_rem_ove_this_@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:003a8384$0$18922$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com...
> "Banana" <banana6443@btinternet.com> wrote in message
> news:CradnUfl65noFHHVnZ2dnUVZ8qrinZ2d@bt.com...
>> Hello,
>>
>> I have a system that is about 3 or 4 years old now and is quite a bit out
>> of date (in computer years). The specs are at the foot of my post.
>>
>> It was originally purchased as a 'gaming machine' and I still play some
>> fairly gfx-intensive titles on it, like Crysis, FSX and so on.
>>
>> I'd love to spend a big bunch of notes on a new system but, alas, I don't
>> have much; only about £100 ($174)!
>>
>> With that in mind, looking at my spec, what part of the system would
>> *you* upgrade?
>
> Everything you need to know about your motherboard is on the page you
> linked to.
>
>> http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?...no=&prod_no=154
>> Processor: Intel Pentium 4 CPU 560 3.60GHz with HT
>> 1GB RAM (2 x 500MB DDR1 400MHz)
>> Video Card: (EVGA) GeForce 7950 GX2 'Superclocked'
>> Western Digital SE Caviar 200GB SATA[*]
>
> For £100, I don't think you can improve your performance hugely as you
> would need to buy expensive parts to replace the fast stuff that you
> already have. You could hunt around ebay for a 3.6 or 3.8 P4. There are
> some 3.6s for about £60 and some 3.8s for about £80, but your motherboard
> won't take the core2Duo parts and you won't get a (decent) new processor
> and board for £100. A 3.6 or 3.8 P4 will up your performance by 20%-30%.
> You could even consider a more powerful cooling system and look at
> overclocking. Not sure how well your motherboard would overclock though -
> research that on google.
>
> You can't afford a faster GFX card. Simple as that!
>
> If it were me, I would definitely get more RAM as Priority 1. 1GB will be
> holding back load times etc on some games and potentially slowing multiple
> application work. Your Motherboard will take DDR2 at either 400 or 533, so
> you could fill it with a pair of 1GB DDR2-533 DIMMS. I have no problems
> personally in buying stuff from ebay shops and for this RAM I would
> recommend you do just that (or whereever is cheapest). I don't personally
> think you will see any performance improvement by quibling over CAS
> timings on the RAM at this level. You could put your existing DDR memory
> on ebay. Sell it as a 'matched pair' (asuming it is!) and you will get
> more interest, although DDR is old now, so don't expect more than a
> tenner! If you upgrade your processor, you could also sell that, probably
> for a similar price. With the extra money, why not consider a newer,
> faster hard disk. You could pick up a fast 500Gig Samsung or WD for
> £40-50.

Ebay.co.uk item numbers (just search for the number on ebay):

130259983120 and 320304033298

Then sell your processor and RAm and use the money to buy 290266127760

"Banana" <banana6443@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:W6-dnaLLkq5g4HPVnZ2dnUVZ8gydnZ2d@bt.com...
> "GT" <ContactGT_rem_ove_this_@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:003a8384$0$18922$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com...
>> "Banana" <banana6443@btinternet.com> wrote in message
>> news:CradnUfl65noFHHVnZ2dnUVZ8qrinZ2d@bt.com...
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I have a system that is about 3 or 4 years old now and is quite a bit
>>> out of date (in computer years). The specs are at the foot of my post.
>>>
>>> It was originally purchased as a 'gaming machine' and I still play some
>>> fairly gfx-intensive titles on it, like Crysis, FSX and so on.
>>>
>>> I'd love to spend a big bunch of notes on a new system but, alas, I
>>> don't have much; only about £100 ($174)!
>>>
>>> With that in mind, looking at my spec, what part of the system would
>>> *you* upgrade?
>>
>> Everything you need to know about your motherboard is on the page you
>> linked to.
>>
>>> http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?...no=&prod_no=154
>>> Processor: Intel Pentium 4 CPU 560 3.60GHz with HT
>>> 1GB RAM (2 x 500MB DDR1 400MHz)
>>> Video Card: (EVGA) GeForce 7950 GX2 'Superclocked'
>>> Western Digital SE Caviar 200GB SATA[*]
>>
>> For £100, I don't think you can improve your performance hugely as you
>> would need to buy expensive parts to replace the fast stuff that you
>> already have. You could hunt around ebay for a 3.6 or 3.8 P4. There are
>> some 3.6s for about £60 and some 3.8s for about £80, but your motherboard
>> won't take the core2Duo parts and you won't get a (decent) new processor
>> and board for £100. A 3.6 or 3.8 P4 will up your performance by 20%-30%.
>> You could even consider a more powerful cooling system and look at
>> overclocking. Not sure how well your motherboard would overclock though -
>> research that on google.
>>
>> You can't afford a faster GFX card. Simple as that!
>>
>> If it were me, I would definitely get more RAM as Priority 1. 1GB will be
>> holding back load times etc on some games and potentially slowing
>> multiple application work. Your Motherboard will take DDR2 at either 400
>> or 533, so you could fill it with a pair of 1GB DDR2-533 DIMMS. I have no
>> problems personally in buying stuff from ebay shops and for this RAM I
>> would recommend you do just that (or whereever is cheapest). I don't
>> personally think you will see any performance improvement by quibling
>> over CAS timings on the RAM at this level. You could put your existing
>> DDR memory on ebay. Sell it as a 'matched pair' (asuming it is!) and you
>> will get more interest, although DDR is old now, so don't expect more
>> than a tenner! If you upgrade your processor, you could also sell that,
>> probably for a similar price. With the extra money, why not consider a
>> newer, faster hard disk. You could pick up a fast 500Gig Samsung or WD
>> for £40-50.
>
> Hi GT,
>
> Thanks for the reply. All read and digested :-)
>
> As you mention, I think memory should be a priority with the limited funds
> available. I thought it would be but I thought I'd ask to see if anyone
> had a better plan.
>
> According to Windows Task Manager, PF usage jumps from around 200MB to
> well over 1GB when playing some games and I'm sure this would be better
> sent to more RAM than on my hard disk. I know it wouldn't improve
> performance of games in terms of FPS but should better the load times and
> improve things like Alt & Tabbing to the desktop...
>
> You also mention upgrading the HD. Well that may well be a good idea
> because I get a Linksys NSLU2UK network storage device tomorrow. If I
> upgrade my PC HD, I could bung this old one into an enclosure and use it
> with 'the slug'.
>
> Thanks again for your reply. All good stuff to consider.

One more thing - if your page file size is jumping around, then it is worth
fixing it with a larger minimum size. I would recommend this... Turn off
your swapfile complete + restart XP. Defragment your hard drive, then
manually set a page file with a decent minimum size - maybe 2GB and a
maximum size of something larger, perhaps 3GB. This will prevent the
swapfile from becoming fragmented and slowing things down.

Watch out for hard disk types - I can't remember if your board has any SATA
ports. You can still buy EIDE drives, but if you are thinking forward to the
future, you would be better with a SATA drive and perhaps a temporary PCI
SATA controller until you upgrade to a new machine, into which you can put
the new SATA drive.