Upgrading my pc

gazmond141014

Hey guys
I know i said a few days ago i would build a new one but at the moment aint got the cash and i dont want to wait but anyways. I bought a high street pc a month or 2 ago. I want to upgrade the processer to something like P4 2.8 but was told it wud nt fit the case. I was told that it would fit but the connections would be all over the place and some of them unreachable. Is this the case?? Its a HP by the way. i was thinking of buying a new case then cause i would be buying another cd drive anyway. So what you guys think?????

Woden

well first thing to note is that you'll invalid your warrant if you go installing a new processor in your computer

with regards to will it fit, it won't be a matter of size or connections being all over the place thats all bull****, either your motherboard supports the 2.8ghz processor or it doesn't, if it does you can install it with adequate cooling if it doesn't you can't

gazmond141014

So what do you recommend i do. How can i find out if my motherboard will accept a new processor. IS there any processor that you recommend. Keep in mind ts mostly games i will be using it for.

bizmark

well whats the name of your Motherboard ? and what speed is your current cpu

gazmond141014

I am currently using a Athlon 2GHz processor. Where would i find the name of my motherboard????

bizmark

k it doesnt matter.....A amd athlon based motherboard wont take a Intell pentium so you will need a new motherboard

Btw the Name should be printed on the board itself or on the manules you get with your pc

Woden

plus a 2ghz athlon is still relatively mid-to high spec, chances are if you got the computer off someone like HP is has a crap graphics card in it, you'll see much better performance increase form buying a decent graphics card, i'd go for a nice radeon 9800 pro available for about €250 check out www.komplett.ie or i thin its www.jes-computers.de, plus tell us your current graphics card model

Col_Loki

Think he probably means Xp2000+ processor as apposed to it running at 2ghz . If that is the case then The XP range with 266mhz FSB will run fine in it, possibly the 333mhz FSB ones aswell but im not sure about that.

Definetly if its gaming your thinkin about you would see a bigger increase by getting a good graphics card like the 9800pro as data said. (that link is www.jes-computer.de for €217 btw ) .

Basicly ATI graphics cards are the way to go at the min, 9600se, 9600, 9600pro , 9800se, 9600XT, 9700, 9700pro, 9800, 9800pro, 9800XT in order of performance. Check what graphics card you have and get back to us !!

gazmond141014

Ok gentlemen i believe it is a NVIDIA geforce4 MX 440 with AGP8X. So can someone recommend a card. Just say one bout 200 would be great.

Col_Loki

Basicly the way to go is with ATI at the min....... due mainly to Nvidia's poor DX9 performance.

Cheapest ive seen for graphics cards is www.jes-computer.de

9800pro -> €216
9600xt -> €155

If you can stretch to €216 then your getting fantastic card, one of the best available. The next down (ignoring the 9700pro which is €210) is the 9600xt , a very good performer but no match for the 9800......... there is quite a big difference.

If your overclocking then mabye a 5900 for the €180 mark would be nice......... even when its overclocked to the brink it will struggle to keep up with the 9800pro in DX9 games (newer games will be DX9 but should be DX8 compatible for another good while yet).

With either card you should see a very nice increase in gaming performance.

gazmond141014

So is this the card you recommended or is this one any good?? I was looking at 256ram ones should i be? another thing is there anyway of putting more than 512ram into my machine???

Col_Loki

The extra ram on the graphics cards is just a marketing trick really......... people see double the ram and think it will increase performance when it really doesent at all. In some cases they use cheaper ram than is used in the 128mb version so you actually take a performance hit. The main thing to focus on is the core speed and memory speed.........

So is this the card you recommended or is this one any good??

Not sure if you were suppose to list a card there and it didnt post, little confused!!

another thing is there anyway of putting more than 512ram into my machine???

Open up your machine and have a look at the memory slots, see how many are free and how many are in use. Also mabye check the label on the ram to get the spec's of it (ie Pc2100... etc). You should be able to add 512mb module but the only problem i see is....... if your upgrading your system fully in a few months then more than lightly the memory you spent money on now isnt going to be usefull in your new system (it will be too slow and you would take a performance hit by using it). Thing about the GFX card, it will be good enough to pop into your new rig and you will still get great performance from it.

gazmond141014

Ya sorry bout not actually saying that. At present i have 256 ram, AMD Athlon XP 2600, NVIDIA Geforce4 MX 440 with AGP8X. I really need to speed up the game play on this pc cause i was playing Battlefield 1942 there and its like a slug not really bad but cant really enjoy the game. I dont think the processor is to bad but the graphics card is a joke and the ram could do with a step up or 2. Could i put more than 512ddr into it do you think??

Woden

nah your processor is fine, i'd upgrade your ram first and then your graphics card and probalby in that order, i used to run bf on a p3 with a geforce 2mx and 512mb ram, it ran fine for me but granted that was at 800*600. you should see a nice overall performance increase i reckon from going to half a gig of ram and pretty much any graphics card you get at the moment will be better then the geforce 4 mx which wasn't actually a big improvement on the 2mx

gazmond141014

Well i had a quick look inside the machine there didnt really see anything in there that might tell me the cache. I have a fair idea that its only 512ram. So you think i should bunk it up to 512, and get the card then. It would be handyier just to get those cause i want to get a 17 TFT and they dont come easy.

cheradenine

At least in battlefield you should notice quite a difference with more ram, i've found playing it on a few different computers that the amount of ram you have impacts heavily on performance, i'd say have no less than 512 for it.

swiss

Battlefield is one of the most memory intensive games I've ever played. It will run on 256Mb, but will use a lot of extra ram (if you have it) as a cache. Your processor, as Dataisgod mentioned, is fine. In fact, I'm running the AMD2600+ at the moment as well.

Most people will tell you that you don't need more than 512Mb of RAM. Strictly speaking this is true, but I would definitely put another 512Mb stick in and have 768Mb of RAM. This will result in a significant performance boost. I don't know how "in depth" you want to get with installing RAM. It's one of the easiest things to do, but I've heard of compatibility issues with certain (unbranded) RAM types and motherboards manufactured for companies such as Dell etc. I think this is deliberate, to get you to pay for branded memory - don't you just love big multinationals :rolleyes:

Next thing is the graphics card. I'm looking extremely closely at the graphics card on the German site, but there are two things I'm unclear about. Firstly, does the price of €216 include the VAT that we would pay, and secondly how much extra would shipping cost? If the deal is that good, and if your budget stretches to that amount of money, it is an excellent acquisition. If not, then the Radeon 9600XT is a great budget card. Don't touch nVidia at the moment. I've got a GeForceFX 5600 at the moment, and my old (burned out) GeForce 4 Ti 4200 outperformed it in some games.

bizmark

Firstly, does the price of €216 include the VAT

You pay 21% vat for any buys from inside the Eu (so its the same) and devilery is cheap ....35 euro for a full system includeing a fecking monitor!

gazmond141014

Lads thank alot for all your help. I really needed it. I will look in to getting more than 512 but really doubt it. I will try and get the ram by the end of this week and i Card ASAP cause the 2 together should work a dream on all my games. Once again thanks lads i will let ye know how i get on.