speedyxjs
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| posted on 29/12/10 at 12:48 PM |
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What to upgrade - Computer guru's needed
I have had my PC for 4-5 years now and during that time the only upgrades i have done is 1GB RAM to 4GB. It all works fine except the few games i use
it for, seem to run fairly slowly (due to improvements in gaming technology i suppose?).
As there is still over 100GB of storage space left, the only thing i was thinking may improve it would be to upgrade the motherboard/CPU but as i know
bugger all about this side of computers, i thought id let the guru's here advise before i spend loads of money on parts that wont help much.
I know it had a dual core 2 at the moment but i know there are now faster ones out there.
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pekwah1
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| posted on 29/12/10 at 12:54 PM |
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you'll need to tell us what you have already....
you have stated 4gb ram which should mean you have a half reasonable motherboard...
Also, 4gb ram should be plenty for most games, so would be pointing towards maybe CPU or graphics card.
Give us a better spec of what you have and you'll get a better answer
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cliftyhanger
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| posted on 29/12/10 at 12:55 PM |
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I am no guru, but the best thing I have done is format the HDD and reload windows. I think they get gummed up with all types of cr*p over time.
Ccleaner helps, but not enough.
Now, over to yonder guru's
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speedyxjs
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| posted on 29/12/10 at 01:06 PM |
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Yeah, i use ccleaner. I knew after i hit the post button that i would need to give more info lol. Will need to wait till i get home to post that 
How long can i resist the temptation to drop a V8 in?
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PSpirine
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| posted on 29/12/10 at 01:07 PM |
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Core 2 Duo + four gigs of ram is quite meaty.
I'd say get yourself a nice video card if it's games that are causing problems for you. Lately though getting a good video card is not
that straightforward - they try to trick you by offering 1gb video cards for cheap - they won't run your games and are only good for HD media
players.
Look out for something with at 256-bit memory interface at least! Any powerful card will have an additional power supply port i.e not just fed from
the pci-e port.
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speed8
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| posted on 29/12/10 at 01:10 PM |
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I recently upgraded my desktop as it was about 8 years old and couldn't keep up with my broadband speed!!!
I used the following to build it
Asus P6X58D-E 1366 motherboard
Intel i7-930 Quad Core Processor
XFX Ati Radeon HD 5870 Graphics Card
6Gb Ram
A few other bits and bobs but thats the main gubbins.
It's fairly quick now but since it's a few months old it's probably obsolete.
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speedyxjs
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| posted on 29/12/10 at 01:21 PM |
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I know the graphics card is a Nvidia GeForce 8400 GS which from wiki seems to be from 2006 
[Edited on 29-12-10 by speedyxjs]
How long can i resist the temptation to drop a V8 in?
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PSpirine
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| posted on 29/12/10 at 01:27 PM |
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One of these then?
NVIDIA GEFORCE 8400GS 1GB PCI-EXPRESS GRAPHICS CARD on eBay (end time 30-Dec-10 17:05:36 GMT)
Notice how it's got 64-bit memory interface! That'll be your problem then 
Look out for at least 256-bit and I guarantee you it'll make a noticeable difference.
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speedyxjs
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| posted on 29/12/10 at 02:25 PM |
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That'll be it! Cheers
How long can i resist the temptation to drop a V8 in?
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mookaloid
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| posted on 29/12/10 at 02:28 PM |
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Brither in Law has just fitted one of these
Palit SONIC nVIDIA
GTX 460 Geforce 1GB to a core 2 duo pc which wasn't playing games very well and now it flies
"That thing you're thinking - it wont be that."
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bigfoot4616
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| posted on 29/12/10 at 03:14 PM |
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just had a AMD Radeon HD 6950 delivered, looking likely to be best card in the £200 area.
there has been a lot of success with people flashing the second bios and getting the card up to 6970 spec.
it does need a large case though and 2 additional power leads
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BenB
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| posted on 29/12/10 at 04:43 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by bigfoot4616
just had a AMD Radeon HD 6950 delivered, looking likely to be best card in the £200 area.
there has been a lot of success with people flashing the second bios and getting the card up to 6970 spec.
it does need a large case though and 2 additional power leads
Blimey. 2 power leads that's some serious welly! (or just horribly inefficient!)
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speedyxjs
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| posted on 29/12/10 at 07:08 PM |
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Seems i was wrong. The graphics card is actually a geforce 9400GT so it already has 128 bit. The rest of my pc is
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Processor
- 1.86GHz, 1GHz FSB, 2MB Cache
- 4GB DDR RAM
none of which makes any sense to me so i dont know if that is good by modern standards or not lol
Should i upgrade to a 256bit card?
How long can i resist the temptation to drop a V8 in?
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bigfoot4616
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| posted on 29/12/10 at 08:28 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by BenB
Blimey. 2 power leads that's some serious welly! (or just horribly inefficient!)
they are meant to be fairly efficient compared to others. just being a powerfull card they will use quite a bit when maxed out, i think most top end
cards are like that now and using 200w/250w at full load.
that 9400GT wasn't a powerfull card when it was new so definatly worth an upgrade.
overclocking the CPU will help as well
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