Computer Upgrade Advices ?

Rasta_Cook

Rasta_Cook

New member
Apr 4, 2007
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Montreal
I know this isnt a tech forum, but maybe someone around here can answer this...

I bought my computer 3 years ago, I hand picked each component, ive been pretty happy with it but its starting to show its age now and I basically just want it to be faster, I do A LOT of multitasking, work in photoshop mostly and play games too (Battlefield2142, DarkFall).

I would like to do the best upgrades i can with a budget of 250$ to 450$ max... not sure if buying a new cpu is worth it, i could overclock mine...

Here are my main specs :

Motherboard : ASUS P5W DH Deluxe
CPU : Intel Core 2 Duo 6400 ( 2.13Ghz )
Ram : Kingston KVR667D2N5k2 2x1g DDR2 PC667/PC5300
Graphic Card : NVIDIA GeForce 9600GT (note : this was purchased 1.5 year ago, so not looking to upgrade this )
Hard Drives :
1 x WesterDigital WD2500JS ATA 250GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb
1 x WesterDigital WD2500KS ATA 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb
Power Supply : Antec Smart Power 2.0 SP500 ATX P4 500W 20/24Pin
Case : Antec NSK6500 Mid Tour
OS : Vista 32bit, but planning on upgrading to Windows 7 asap ( 22 october ? )

What would be the components to upgrade and with what should i replace them ?

Some of my thoughts/concerns :
1. Will my power supply be good enough for the upgrades ?
2. Since i have 2x1gig of PC667 memory, Is it better to REPLACE with 2x2gig PC800 or to ADD 2x2gig PC800 (6gig total but running at PC667)?
3. Does the Brand of memory matter much ? Do i need to look at that or just find the cheapest 2x2gig PC800 ram i can get ?
4. Will i need to get better cooling for my CPU/Case ?

5. Concerning the Video Card, i bought that one about 1.5 year ago or so, I was thinking i should keep it for now as i can still run games decently at 1680x1024, maybe in 1 year id be ready to upgrade that, unless you guys say its a must... Instead of a video card, i was thinking maybe to buy better hard drive, however it seems the better hard drives ( 10k RPM ) are too expensive for the amount of gigs they offer... perhaps i could just buy a third drive, and put my first 2 250gb drives in raid... ive never done that though so not sure how it works or if its worth it, but i need my data to be safe, this computer is for work mostly, but with a decent amount of game playing
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One thing I would spend most of my money with is the Graphic Card. And also buy 2 gig +
 
Rasta_Cook said:
Some of my thoughts/concerns :
1. Will my power supply be good enough for the upgrades ?
Click to expand...
Should be ok, however for gaming and whatnot you may think of jumping to a 750W power supply.
2. Since i have 2x1gig of PC667 memory, Is it better to REPLACE with 2x2gig PC800 or to ADD 2x2gig PC800 (6gig total but running at PC667)?
Click to expand...
You should REPLACE, never mix and match ram, it can cause issues.
3. Does the Brand of memory matter much ? Do i need to look at that or just find the cheapest 2x2gig PC800 ram i can get ?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure how much it really matters but like most things, the more you pay the better quality it probably is.
4. Will i need to get better cooling for my CPU/Case ?
Click to expand...
Unless your beefing up your processor or graphics card, I fail to see why you'd need more cooling. Unless your going to overclock forget about it.
5. Concerning the Video Card, i bought that one about 1.5 year ago or so, I was thinking i should keep it for now as i can still run games decently at 1680x1024, maybe in 1 year id be ready to upgrade that, unless you guys say its a must... Instead of a video card, i was thinking maybe to buy better hard drive, however it seems the better hard drives ( 10k RPM ) are too expensive for the amount of gigs they offer... perhaps i could just buy a third drive, and put my first 2 250gb drives in raid... ive never done that though so not sure how it works or if its worth it, but i need my data to be safe, this computer is for work mostly, but with a decent amount of game playing
16x16_smiley-happy.gif
Click to expand...
Your video card is OK, although you may think about upgrading at this point (1.5 years pretty much means obsolete). If it does it's job to your liking, then leave it alone.

As for HD I'm not seeing to the point of having a 10k rpm hard drive. It's pretty much a rip off, wait for the price to come down ZDNET actually wrote an article on this.
 
Here's the basics of what you need to do with a budget of up to $450.00 to increase both speed and capacity for what you said you do on the computer.

1.) Upgrade the MB & CPU to a Quad Core. (Check prices on DDR3 Ram to see if it's worth getting a board to accommodate it. If not, stick with the DDR2.) Be sure that that the MB power connections match up to your PS connections, I don't like converters. (Your PS should handle your stuff just fine since you won't be using a dual Vid Card setup and only have two HDs. In dual Vid setups and more than two HDs I suggest at least a 750 watt and preferably 1250 watts. With the higher PS & power needs I then up the case cooling.)

2.) Get as much RAM as possible. (8 Gigs or more. I'll get heat for suggesting that, but if you multi-task like me, you will be using that ram and the more you have the faster the programs will run. Extra room is GOOD.) Crossair is the most reliable in "my" opinion. But I've used off brand ram from FleaBay and it's worked just fine. (Make SURE that it is NEW and not used though.)

It's good that you're keeping your video card. Just that alone would have blown your budget without anything else. Lulz

Your HDs are about as fast as you can get for now, cost effectiveness wise with a STA setup. (The cache amounts suck due to the size of the drives. You can upgrade these later though.) I wouldn't mess with a RAID setup of those two drives. Just use them as they are for now. For data security, pick up a 1 TB usb drive for like $89.00 when you can afford it after your system upgrade. Then do nightly back-ups to the external HD. Be sure to use your 16GB cache HD as your primary OS drive.

With your budget you can't do anything worthwhile about your video card. It should be good enough for awhile yet.

After you upgrade the MB, CPU, and Ram just throw up your old setup as a MB-Combo on FleaBay for a $100.00 or so and get some of your money back and put it towrds your new OS or the external HD.


I wish you well on your project.

EDIT:
P.S. Rage9 is spot on with his advise for you. He posted while I was typing this.
 
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1. The power supply should be enough, the only cases in which you would need more output from the PSU is when you have devices installed that actually require you plug in individual power input to them. 500W should be enough to power your motherboard, one optical drive, one floppy drive, two hard drives and additional device, may be if you get a graphics card that would can't run on what the motherboard outputs.

2&3. Yes the brand does matter, most generic RAM sticks do not support clocking, and therefore cannot perform to their full potential, I recommend the Kingston. Also if you upgrade to any more than 3GB of RAM, you will need to upgrade to a 64-bit operating system for the rest of the memory to actually be recognized. And this in most cases involves a fresh install of the operating system.

4. Upgrading a cooler would only be required if you are upgrading the CPU as well and the new one is not compatible with the cooler.

5. How much memory does the graphics card have? And it's DDR3 I'm assuming. If you are wanting to upgrade I would suggest 9800GTS or similar, but I don't really think you need it.

I don't really think you need to upgrade. I mean unless you're doing normal multitasking, photoshop editing and playing games all at the same time simultaneously, the current system should suffice. I think what may be wrong is that you have too much crap installed on your computer. Maybe try running Crap Cleaner. And also remove some applications from startup that you don't always use.

I personally was using an AMD Athlon 3500+ (2.1GHZ), 2GB DDR400, nVidia 6800 1GB until about three months ago because I didn't feel the need to upgrade, and I was using the computer for personal and business use with two screens attached, so lots multi-tasking. The only thing I couldn't do was play recently released games (which is why I upgraded).

Also once you upgrade to Windows 7 you will see a major performance increase.
 
Get the best cpu the mo-bo can handle. than save your cash to build something that supports dd3..

and go with amd next time you will not have to break out as much Vaseline come time for upgrade

Or if you are very brave connect the ground from your power receptacle to the case (to ground it and prevent electron causims)

Then you are ready for some power, connect the white wire from the power recepticle to the 34th pin on the processor, then the green wire from the power plug to the yellow wire of the 4 pin motherboard power connector.... You Will be Smoking Then !!!!!!!!
 
Just kidding -- seriously it is best to save your cash till you can aford a new build -- You may be able to reuse the HD, PowerS, and vid card.
 
OK guys thanks to for all the advices.

So i will definitively be buying at least 2x2gig of DDR2 PC800 ram to REPLACE my current 2x1gig pc667 ram as everyone suggested in order to avoid problems with mixing the ram... although it is a shame, i would have loved to have 6gig of ram :D

Aside from that, i dont think i need to upgrade my mobo, if i upgrade the bios i can get a lot of the newer cpus to work on it... I am not 100% sure the cpus are trully used to their full capacity though, but i think so ?
 
Rasta_Cook said:
OK guys thanks to for all the advices.

So i will definitively be buying at least 2x2gig of DDR2 PC800 ram to REPLACE my current 2x1gig pc667 ram as everyone suggested in order to avoid problems with mixing the ram... although it is a shame, i would have loved to have 6gig of ram :D

Aside from that, i dont think i need to upgrade my mobo, if i upgrade the bios i can get a lot of the newer cpus to work on it... I am not 100% sure the cpus are trully used to their full capacity though, but i think so ?
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You're correct. I was too lazy earlier to follow your MB link. I also noticed that your ram banks are dual channel. You can get two sticks of PAIRED ram and put it into two banks for dual channel and have your 4 Gigs. Then when you upgrade your OS to Win7 you could install the 64 bit version and then get another 4 gigs of ram at that time.

Now, since you do have Dual channel ram banks, you CAN keep your two one gig sticks and then just add the two newer ones. (Just don't mix the chips in wrong banks.)

In Dual Channel you only have to match EACH channel (Two Banks) with the exact same ram chips. You can have slower and different density ram in the other channel as long as the two sticks are matched.

The difference in ram speed will NOT be noticeable between the two channels performance wise.

Your MB booklet should show you the possible ram bank combination' for dual channel memory use and the density/memory each bank can use.

As others have said, the extra memory over 4 gigs won't be used until you have a 64 bit OS.

As for your CPU usage concern, Win7 will make use of a Quad core CPU so it will improve your performance. (Vista was making use of Multi-Core CPU's but was a RAM hog compared to Win7. Win7 is what Vista was suppose to be.)
 
Midas Touch said:
In Dual Channel you only have to match EACH channel (Two Banks) with the exact same ram chips. You can have slower and different density ram in the other channel as long as the two sticks are matched.
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So you mean i can have both, 2xPC667 and 2xPC800 combos, and they will all run at their individual max speed, NOT at the lowest speed of the group ( 667mhz ) ?
 
Rasta_Cook said:
So you mean i can have both, 2xPC667 and 2xPC800 combos, and they will all run at their individual max speed, NOT at the lowest speed of the group ( 667mhz ) ?
Click to expand...


Correct. By channel. One channel will be fast and the other will be slightly slower. To check it after install, run CPUZ or PC Wizard and check the speeds.

With a Dual channel setup you will be able to take advantage of the faster ram while using the slower ram. If it was not dual channel you would only run at the speed of the slowest ram stick.

I've gotten conflicting reports over the years about exactly how dual channel works when it comes to banked interleaving and channel access priority.

I've run my systems with mixed ram speeds in the two channels in the past and then got matched speed ram to replace the slower channel and the difference was unnoticeable performance wise.

It's when the chips are mixed on the same channel that you have problems because each bank on that channel interleaves the memory request between those two chips. Since the speeds are different in those banks the data doesn't match up during the interleave process.

The mixed responses I've gotten are when I ask if the two channels then interleave between each other. (Channels and banks are different in this.) Most say that they do not, but some have said that they can. I do know that as long as you have matched pairs in each channel, the channels can have different speeds and densities without problems.

Basically, put your first fastest RAM stick into the lowest numbered RAM slot and then put the matching chip into the matching colored bank or whatever your manual tells you. (I've seen some boards where a channel had the sticks in different colored banks and other boards have them in the same colored banks. Just go by the manual or find it online if needed and do what it says for Dual Channel Memory setup.)

It's always optimal to have ALL of the RAM matched, that really goes without saying, but you can have mixed channels. (But not banks if you want to use the better and faster dual channel capabilities of your MB.)
 
Midas Touch said:
Here's the basics of what you need to do with a budget of up to $450.00 to increase both speed and capacity for what you said you do on the computer.

1.) Upgrade the MB & CPU to a Quad Core. (Check prices on DDR3 Ram to see if it's worth getting a board to accommodate it. If not, stick with the DDR2.) Be sure that that the MB power connections match up to your PS connections, I don't like converters. (Your PS should handle your stuff just fine since you won't be using a dual Vid Card setup and only have two HDs. In dual Vid setups and more than two HDs I suggest at least a 750 watt and preferably 1250 watts. With the higher PS & power needs I then up the case cooling.)

2.) Get as much RAM as possible. (8 Gigs or more. I'll get heat for
Click to expand...

Actually, most users won't notice the difference between dual core and quad core. The only time this comes into play is with video editing or INTENSIVE (read: hundreds of thousands of rows and more) spreadsheets.

Even with PPC, it's very unlikely you're breaking the 100k row count on spreadsheets, and if you are -- split that shit up! CSV doesn't weigh in the same since it's flat text with field separating characters.

So, most likely you're better off investing the extra money you'd spend on a quad core CPU into a better video card, you'll get way more bang for your buck.

Also, stick with 4gb minimum on RAM and if you can do dual channel at same speed it can be noticeable on intensive apps.
 
Damain said:
It really does use a lot less RAM than Vista. I have 3.9GB available and it was using over 80% with Vista, now uses less than 50% (both with no page file) and also much snappier.
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Unused RAM is wasted RAM.

Windows Vista and Windows 7 use RAM more like Linux than Windows XP. If there is memory free, something should get cached to it. It that memory is then needed for something else it is cleared. Many don't understand this when they first get Vista and complain about it using most of their RAM.
 
DaVJ1 said:
One thing I would spend most of my money with is the Graphic Card. And also buy 2 gig +
Click to expand...

Thats completly what I was thinking. I would get 4Gigs fast ram. If it works well with the old RAM cool, otherwise pull the old RAM and Ebay it.

And spend the rest on a video card. ATI 4870s have come done a lot in price.

Your CPU aint that old and Quad core or i7 or something will just destroy your budget.

Get something like this: Newegg.com Shopping Cart

That fucking card has 2 gigs GDDR5 and the whole package is less than $300.

You know you wanna play Far Cry 2 and Starcraft 2 will be out in a few months....
 
Drake said:
You know you wanna play Far Cry 2 and Starcraft 2 will be out in a few months....
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Far Cry 2 is already out, and I can run it maxed on my Radeon 4850, so if you can jump on that 4870 or even the 4890 has come down in price, you can get either for less than $200.
 
Umm ya I know Far Cry 2 is out. There was two parts to that sentence.

BTW you playing FC2? My character has turned to evil and has no friends. This normal? Part of the natural plot or did I fuck up and need to go back and play nice?
 
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