JimBob wrote:
> I've just upgraded from a 1.1ghz athlon xp, to a 3000+(2.2ghz) athlon xp and
> a Abit KV7.
> I have 256 pc2100 ram, mx440 64mb vid card, win xp, 60gig 5400 maxtor h/d.
> My problem is that it doesn't seem to have improved my system at all, is
> this expected? I'm going to get more RAM and new h/drive in the new year and
> also a radeon 9800 pro. It's just that i at least expected *SOME*
> improvement on my previous cpu.
It depends on what you 'expected' and what you 'measure' it by.
Did you expect programs to load faster? That will be primarily determined
by your hard drive speed, plus how much RAM you have because of page file
use during the load, and neither of those have changed so you won't see
much of an 'improvement' there.
Gaming performance is going to be determined primarily by your graphics
card, because yours is old and not CPU limited, so you're not going to see
significant improvement there. (plus how much memory is available)
And 'general' Windows XP performance, like office apps, is highly dependent
on memory size, especially with 256 Meg of PC2100, so you're not going to
see much improvement there (secondarily by the hard drive because, with 256
Meg, it'll be using the page file and hard drive speed is critical for that).
You're on the right track, it's just that you're not there yet.
As you can see, memory affects everything and your case is even more
critical because you're running PC2100, 133 Mhz, with a 200 Mhz (400 DDR)
FSB processor. That means it's running async, a performance loss right
there, and it can't keep up with the FSB demands because it's so slow.
Which means your processor isn't able to give full performance because it
can't get to memory as fast as it wants to. Memory is your first concern
for overall performance.
With DDR rather inexpensive you should probably dump the PC2100 you have
and go for PC3200 (or better) to match your processor. Plus, while the KV7
has three memory slots you can only use 2 with PC2700 and up. So, I'd
shoot, as a minimum, for two 256 Meg PC3200 sticks for 512 Meg total. Two
512 Meg sticks would be the next step, if you use memory hungry applications.
Next would be your video card but there are others in here more experienced
with what the best bang for the buck, or overall performer, is than I am so
see what they say. That will be your gaming upgrade.
If your 'only' concern is gaming, and you're strapped for cash, you could
reverse the priority on those two and do the video card first since it
matters not how much RAM you have, or how fast it is, when the video card
can't run any faster itself.
Lastly would be the hard drive since, while it affects program load time,
it won't be so much of an effect with 512 Meg of RAM, as it is with 256
Meg, since page file use will be minimized with the larger RAM capacity.
However, a 7200 RPM large drive, either IDE or SATA, would give a
noticeable improvement, especially if you do video editing or otherwise
work with large files. On the other hand, waiting a few extra milliseconds
for a game, or anything else for that matter, to load is of little
consequence compared to their performance in operation.
> TIA
>
> ME.
>
><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
>> Stay informed about: New CPU + M/board! 
FAQ
Profile
Private Messages
Log in
