I'm starting to think about upgrading my PC a little, its just starting to feel a bit slow

Its based on an ASUS 'P5ND2 SLI Deluxe' and currently has a P4 630 (3.0Ghz P4), 2Gb (=4*512Mb) of 533MHz DDR2, a pair of nvida 6800 ultra's (256Mb each), a pair of 120Gb SATA HDD's in a RAID array and an SB X-Fi card

annoyingly this is just slightly too old to support any of the core 2 CPU's it'll will support the 670 / 672 (3.8GHz P4) and the 840 (3.2GHz Pentium D) and the 840 Extreme (but these still seem really expensive)

I don't want to spend too much because I'll probably re-build it properly in a year or so with a new MB, but it could do with being a little faster in the mean time

I'm just not sure where I could make the biggest gains for the least ££ - any suggestions?

cheers
-Robert

What do you use it for? Amazing how much rubbish some computers have running in the background and loads of things running on start-up slowing everything down. When was the last time you defragged or formatted?

I've got an old dell c60 laptop that has 2 icons on the desktop and I always keep it as bare as possible (running tiny xp beast, no anti-virus etc). It's much quicker than my both parents computers as they have so much crap on them

With that spec it's probably the crap you've got on it, rather than needing an upgrade, are you a Gamer? If so, delete the Games you dont need.

Stop many of the useless applications running in the background with hijackthis, run a registry cleaner, file cleaner and defrag. You'll find it's much quicker...


Steve

I'd give it a good clean (software wise) and have a look at overclocking it. Pentium 4s run pretty hot but are equally quite clockable.

I've got an old P4 2.66Ghz P4 running quite stably at 3.10Ghz Makes a reasonable speed difference. And it's free (until you cook something!!)....

"Hijackthis" is great for getting crap out the registry.

Of course it goes without saying if you have any Norton software on the PC toss it over the side.

just to clear a few things up...

its running XP pro (SP3)

its never on the internet, so I run it with no-anti virus at all

Its not had a clean install for a while, but its not really got much on it and the registry is still quite clean, so windows / background programs arn't effecting it to much - its really hardly any slower than its ever been, I just want more !

the drivers are all upto date

it is games that are slowing it down the most (its nearer the min spec for the new ones than I'd like)

I did try overclocking it (the MB macke it really easy) but it was getting a bit too unstable , so I'm thinking about a faster / higher spec CPU (probably second hand)

my brother has just offered me his old graphics card (8600 GT or GTS ?) if I wait a few weeks - it should do the trick as far the graphics go (I like my 6800's but they are quire old now)

[Edited on 8/8/08 by mcerd1]

[Edited on 8/8/08 by mcerd1]

How hot was it getting during the OC?
A problem like speedfan is useful- monitors temperatures and voltages during OCing....

You're just being greedy!!!



Steve

quote:

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Originally posted by Hellfire
You're just being greedy!!!



Steve

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quote:

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Originally posted by BenB
How hot was it getting during the OC?
A problem like speedfan is useful- monitors temperatures and voltages during OCing....

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A good graphics card and more/better memory ought to breathe some life into it.

Run msconfig to see if some of your programs may have imbedded some crapola into the start-up routine. Running scandisk and defrag might help a little, too.