Borded and want to upgrade my desktop...

[b3nje]

Well...without you all saying go by a new one...if its going to be pointless to upgrade then fine...BUT;

AMD Athlon 64 3400+ ~2.4 GHz
1GB Ram
ATI Radeon 9550 / X1050 Series - 256MB (APG)
300GB HDD - 2 x 150GB

It has firewire and USB2 etc...just getting a bit slow now.

I don't really want to get a new one as this is packed with goodies and a hell of a lot of work and music.

any suggestions?

maybe uping the ram?

 

[b3nje]

oh wow, i'll bear that inmind!

 

[nosluom]

i'd whack another gig of ram in mate and get yourself an amd x2 dual core chip, they're really really cheap now! if you wanted to change the motherboard as well i'd go intel and get a core duo chip

 

[b3nje]

i can only go dual core with a new mobo can't i??

 

[GazCB]

I don't see why this pc is running slow tbh. Yes another 1MB of RAM would help quicken things up. I imagine your 150GB hard-disks have slow access times too being so big, maybe get one small one for installing your OS on and just the applications you want to run fastest.

The first thing I'm thinking though is that you need to format your pc. By saying you have loads of stuff on there you don't want to lose it suggests you don't format your pc ever. Depending on how much you use you pc and how much you d/l and install/uninstall stuff will affect how often you need to format your hard-disk, but I'd say for fastest running I'd do it at least annually but possibly every 6 months. You should be doing a disk clean-up and defragmentation at least every month and ideally weekly.

Sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs with any of that.

P.S. I put up more pics of my car like you asked and you never commented

 

[nosluom]

no mate amd do socket 939 ones which im assuming you have at the mo!

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-183-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=567

only 58 quid, cheap as chips!!

 

[MGM]

new gfx card, and if your mobo supports SATA get that set up properly

 

[GazCB]

I'm sceptical of these core increases tbh. They're targeted at multitasking but personally as a gamer I don't care. You get a single core running at lightspeed for optimum performance in games with no background programs running. If you're d/l while listening to music and browsing the internet, a fast single core cpu can do this. The core increases are more suited to business application IMO and a waste of money for the personal computer.

 

[b3nje]

woahhh ^^ i like the look of that - how can i make sure mine is 939?

also can you suggest a good agp card sub £70

my monitor only has hdmi and vga inputs

 

[b3nje]

how do i find out my motherboard also - i'm on laptop at moment so can rip that pc apart...i';ll get a pic, 2mins

 

[MGM]

open it up, the brand and model number will be stamped on it somewhere

 

[nosluom]

prob the best you'll get for under 70 mate

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-116-AS&tool=3

I'd go 20 quid more and get a pricier one though!!

 

[nosluom]

if i remember correctly mate if you have an amd 64 bit at the moment then it will definately either be 939 or the new am2 which it definately wont be if you only have an agp graphics slot

 

[GazCB]

That GFX card will run all the current games at decent res with reasonable detail nice and smooth. To run the next generation of games you're likely to have to reduce detail or resolution to get decent frame rates though. You may or may not be too bothered about this.

 

[nosluom]

bloody annoying thing is the need for one of the latest cards if you wanna play direct x 10 games in the future. Whole industry is a complete con at times, i swear they work together to rip us all off!! I'll be sticking with me 7800gt for a good while yet

 

[b3nje]

i think i'll order that card and maybe look into the new processor thing.

just enough to keep it going for longer...pictures are here in 2seconds, maybe you guys can spot the motherboard model

 

[b3nje]

"Built for Microsoft® Windows Vista™"

will it be fine with XP Media centre though?

i have vista on my laptop and can not stand it!

 

[b3nje]

 

[GazCB]

I think I have a winner...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/B3491-Gigabyt...categoryZ99244QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

Gigabyte GA-K8VM Athlon 64 Skt 754

If this is your mobo, the chances of upgrading the cpu are zero I'm afraid.

 

[b3nje]

yeah...does look like this

 

[GazCB]

So I'd go with my original advice about formatting.

 

[b3nje]

well my graphics card just went, POP!

think i'll give the one on that link ago!