PC Upgrading Questions

[Sava]

I currently have:
Athlon XP 1700+
512 meg RAM
GeForce 4 Ti4200 128meg vid card
3 Hard-drives for a total of 60 Gig

I'm noticing my PC isn't performing as great as it was a few years ago when I built this PC (duh). With Doom3 and Half-Life 2 coming out, I wish to have optimal performance without having to change a lot of my hardware. I've come to the conclusion that my processor is my weak link. I also plan on getting more RAM, but I have two questions.

1. Is my processor the weak link of my system in terms of overall performance?

2. Can I buy a new motherboard and processor and install them without having to format a hard-drive and install Windows XP again?

I'd also like to hear some other recommendations about upgrading my PC... perhaps some processor recommendations. Currently, I'm considering another AMD processor because cost/performance edge that AMD processors have with their Intel equivalents. I haven't been keeping up with the latest prices, so if I am wrong in my assumption, please correct me.

Also, if I upgrade my processor, I don't want to get the absolute top of the line because of the cost. I'd prefer to get a processor that is like 1 to 2 steps behind the top of the line.

Thanks in advance.

[Pekka]

Sava,

1. Maybe. With the new super games coming, I don't know about that GeForce. Maybe. For the overall poor performance, maybe formatting your HDs and installing OS again would help a lot.

2. Yes.

[Kassiopeia]

2. Can I buy a new motherboard and processor and install them without having to format a hard-drive and install Windows XP again?

Depends. What I've heard, more often than not Windows goes all bonkers with the strange new hardware and will refuse to work properly.

What comes to 1, I wouldn't really say your processor is the bottleneck. What you're running is just about a few steps behind the top of the line. When it comes to games, the graphics card is definitely your bottleneck. A Radeon 9600 Pro slapped on your system ought to run Half-Life 2 pretty well.

If you do want to upgrade, I'd suggest something along the lines of the Athlon XP 2500, but it's up to you whether it's worth the price compared to your old processor; you would have to probably switch your motherboard with an 2500, even though it fits in the same socket as the XP1700 does, as the old motherboard can't necessarily handle the bus speed of the 2500. (I wonder if it could be underclocked slightly and run on an older motherboard?)

Comparing the 2500 to the 1700 can be tricky, but if AMD is to be believed - at least when it comes to comparing their own processors with each other - the 2500 has about 40-50% more "power" than the 1700.

What sort of memory are you using? Is it SDR RAM or DDR RAM?

[Akka]

Your comp isn't top-of-the-line, but it isn't that bad yet.

Yup, the processor is definitely the weak link now. The graphic card isn't the best, but it's still able to handle most of what is done today.

What you will upgrade depends mainly about the kind of upgrade you wish to do.

If you wish to just get some more power to make your computer last a bit longer, but no more, then just changing your CPU (a 2400+ or 2500+ would do the trick, and is dirt cheap by now) will do.

If you wish to get a good PC right now by changing all that isn't that great, then you could get a GF 5900 XT and a 3000+ (or a 2500+, it would still run pretty well and be less costly), both very efficient and still in the medium prices.

In all cases, I would advise to get a new HD. Their prices have dropped nearly to the ground these days, and you can find a good 160 Go for less than 130 $.

And yes, you CAN change the CPU and the motherboard without reinstalling Windows, but well, I would not advise it. Not that it will do harmful things to the comp, but it's usually a bit messy in the OS after that.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Echo Kass's statments.

If you go the new processor route you will almost have to consider stepping up to faster memeory. Most likely you are running DDR PC2100 if I were to guess.

Putting a XP2500+ in would likely mean looking at PC2700.

[Sava]

What sort of memory are you using? Is it SDR RAM or DDR RAM?

DDR Ram...

I don't overclock my PC... initially, I had problems with my processor overheating, but I bought a better fan and stuff. I suppose I could overclock, but the performance back then was good enough so I didn't feel the need to do so. My clock speed is only 1100 Mhz, which seems low... thats why I figured my clock speed was keeping me behind.

Another question... if I do format a HD and reinstall the OS, will Windows XP give me **** about the activation? It's a legal copy, but I heard you can't activate it more than like 3 times... and this is would be the third.

[Sava]

oh BTW, my motherboard can only handle up to Athlon XP 1800+ :/

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by Sava
I currently have:
Athlon XP 1700+
512 meg RAM
GeForce 4 Ti4200 128meg vid card
3 Hard-drives for a total of 60 Gig

I'm noticing my PC isn't performing as great as it was a few years ago when I built this PC (duh). With Doom3 and Half-Life 2 coming out, I wish to have optimal performance without having to change a lot of my hardware. I've come to the conclusion that my processor is my weak link. I also plan on getting more RAM, but I have two questions.

1. Is my processor the weak link of my system in terms of overall performance?

2. Can I buy a new motherboard and processor and install them without having to format a hard-drive and install Windows XP again?

I'd also like to hear some other recommendations about upgrading my PC... perhaps some processor recommendations. Currently, I'm considering another AMD processor because cost/performance edge that AMD processors have with their Intel equivalents. I haven't been keeping up with the latest prices, so if I am wrong in my assumption, please correct me.

Also, if I upgrade my processor, I don't want to get the absolute top of the line because of the cost. I'd prefer to get a processor that is like 1 to 2 steps behind the top of the line.

Thanks in advance.

1) We don't know what speed your hard disks are... but I bet, considering the sizing (3 totalling 60 megs) they are 5400RPM models. These will be slow and have tiny amounts of cache. A nice spiffy new WD with 8 meg will give you the most significant speed increase in the system overall... HD's access speeds are judged in micro, not nano seconds. This would be my first choice.

A Western Digital Raptor WD740GD (10k rpm SATA drive, and you'd obviously need an SATA controller as well as the drive) would be nice... but almost any 7200rpm 8mb cache IDE drive will be nice (in comparison to what you have.) Look at the leaderboard at storagereview.com. They are the hard disk geeks.

2) The rest isn't terrible... (although what speed is that DDR ram... it IS DDR, right?) but if you want to run the latest FPS's you'll probably be better off with a graphics card upgrade... since typically that is the component with the most load.

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by Sava
oh BTW, my motherboard can only handle up to Athlon XP 1800+ :/

I'm thinking a nice new ATI gfx card, then... if you want great FPS performance, and/or a new HD for overall performance.

[tinyp3nis]

Oh man... you sure it's 1100 mhz now? I know people who have had this problem...
How about getting 33% faster processor for free? You're probably underclocked right now. I think your processor should be at 1466 to be 1700+, so yours is set to 100 fsb instead of 133 what it should be. You can change it from the bios yourself, and I hope you know what bios is and how to get there...
If your DDR is 133 (pc2100 ?) you'll probably have no problem running the comp at 1466, it's supposed to be the stock speed.
If you're unsure, don't do this of course.

I too have ti4200 right now, also waiting for doom3 and hl2 too...no need to upgrade before.

[Kassiopeia]

Wait a second, I misread that as "GeForce 3 Ti200", for some reason. A GF4 4200 is more than enough to play Doom 3 and Half-Life 2, especially if you've had your processor underclocked by accident. There should be no need for you to upgrade, hell, your computer is just about as fast as mine is, maybe even faster with DX8 games.

[alva]

Depends. What I've heard, more often than not Windows goes all bonkers with the strange new hardware and will refuse to work properly.

I'm noticing my PC isn't performing as great as it was a few years ago

I did this a few moths ago and had no problems at all. I did do a clean re-install but the point is, that you should be allright.
Having said that, I do advice to do a clean install, you might be pleasantly surprised about the speed increase afterwards. (btw, why are you so reluctant to do it? put cd in drive, boot-up, done)

1) We don't know what speed your hard disks are... but I bet, considering the sizing (3 totalling 60 megs) they are 5400RPM models. These will be slow and have tiny amounts of cache. A nice spiffy new WD with 8 meg will give you the most significant speed increase in the system overall... HD's access speeds are judged in micro, not nano seconds. This would be my first choice.

Unless you have money to burn, upgrading isn't going to do you much good IMHO, at least not money-worth.

[Urban Ranger]

Don't spend any money yet. Try the games out first - if they don't run smoothly, consider an upgrade.

[MrBaggins]

Well.. UR. All except for those HD's... they are screaming "Upgrade me", seemingly, and even games (map load times, etc) will be significantly improved in the process.

[Provost Harrison]

UR speaks sense...I would have thought you would have been able to run the games of your choice providing you don't have all bells and whistles switched on. But the HD clearout and reinstall is certainly a pretty good idea.

I have my P4 3000 and my GeForce FX5900...so I am all ready for Doom 3/HL 2

[Sava]

My one hard-drive: 30 Gig Western Digital 7200, is where I have Windows XP and most of my games. I have a 20 gig that I use for pr0n, mp3, and movie storage and a 10 Gig I use for backups. The other two (the 20 gig and 10 gig) are 5400, although the 20 gig might be 7200, I'm not sure. I am sure of the 30 gig as I bought that when I put this PC together. Is there a way to check to see if my RAM is pc2100? I'm pretty sure it is, but would like to be absolutely sure.

I am familiar with my BIOS (I'm not a total nub ) and will try setting the FSB to 133 as I have it at 100 now.

UR: yeah, that's what I was thinking. I'll try to adjust the clock speed, then see how my comp performs.

[Provost Harrison]

100 to 133 is one hell of a jump in overclocking terms...quite often you can nudge a few percent out but nothing like that - not without liquid nitrogen

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by MrBaggins
Well.. UR. All except for those HD's... they are screaming "Upgrade me", seemingly, and even games (map load times, etc) will be significantly improved in the process.

The HDD's can well be 7200rpm with 2MB cache ones. They were quite wide spread for awhile. At any rate, it's the transfer rate that counts, not how fast the buggers span.

Even though, for standardised 3 1/2 HDD's, rotation speed is positively correlated to data transfer speed.

[Sava]

PH: my only BIOS settings are 100 and 133

[Provost Harrison]

Well if the motherboard is designed to run at 133 then that will be fine, but you may have to reduce the multiplier of the processor otherwise it will just not work...

[Sava]

k, I'm gonna try changing some settings now... I'm praying to god my processor doesn't die on me. I got a monster processor fan, so I think I should be fine.

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


The HDD's can well be 7200rpm with 2MB cache ones. They were quite wide spread for awhile. At any rate, it's the transfer rate that counts, not how fast the buggers span.

Even though, for standardised 3 1/2 HDD's, rotation speed is positively correlated to data transfer speed.

A 5400RPM drive has an inherent disadvantage over a 7200RPM drive. Number of heads makes up for it somewhat, but I don't believe I've seen any recent 5400RPM disk outperform any 7200RPM disk.

And that new 10k WD SATA drive is king of the workstation drives... the 8mb cache on a 10k unit is a very big deal indeed.

Sava> if you already have a recent HD, then... I wouldn't touch anything until you find you need to. If you're intent on getting more Frames per sec... a gfx card upgrade would work, but nothing out now is radically quicker than what you have at regular game resolutions.

[Sava]

okay, I was wrong... my BIOS does have incremental settings for my FSB... not just 100 or 133. I tried 133, it didn't like it. So I did 110, which seems to be running fine. But my clock speed (at system startup) still said 1100 MhZ... is there a way to test it in windows? maybe that thing was wrong. Strangely, when I set it at 133, it named my processor Athlon XP 1700+ at startup... it usually says 1100MhZ processor.

thanks for the input guys, I think I'm going to hold off buying anything new for the time being. I am going to tweak my stuff some more though. There were some other settings I wasn't familiar with in my "Advanced Hardware Monitor" settings in the BIOS. Let me find out what I don't know, and could someone please explain them to my dumb ass.

One other weird thing happened, however. I remember I made a thread a while ago about my brightness being all ****ed up. Well, when I adjusted the FSB to 110, my brightness seemed to be back to normal (it was super bright when I came into windows because I had turned up the settings to compensate for the darkness I had when my FSB was 100). Does that sound strange? Why would my vid card be so affected by a small increase in FSB settings?

Thanks again you guys... you are all being very helpful to me. I am learning much from your superior intellects.

[Sava]

okay, Control Panel > System says my processor is still 1.10 GhZ... how come this didn't change when I set the FSB to 110?

another thing, my processor temperature was 55 degrees Celsius when I set the FSB to 133. That seemed high, is it? At 100, it's usually 50 degrees Celsius. I assume the temperature was too high, causing my system to not like the FSB set at 133.

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by Sava
okay, Control Panel > System says my processor is still 1.10 GhZ... how come this didn't change when I set the FSB to 110?

another thing, my processor temperature was 55 degrees Celsius when I set the FSB to 133. That seemed high, is it? At 100, it's usually 50 degrees Celsius. I assume the temperature was too high, causing my system to not like the FSB set at 133.

Up to 60-65 is fine.

75 or 80 is high.

It starts to be a serious problem at 90.

[optimus2861]

Originally posted by Sava
Another question... if I do format a HD and reinstall the OS, will Windows XP give me **** about the activation? It's a legal copy, but I heard you can't activate it more than like 3 times... and this is would be the third.

It'll prompt you to reactivate again, yes, but there's no limit on how many times you can activate it. At worst, you'll have to phone up Microsoft and rattle off a string of characters, then have a string of characters read back to you. All MS really gives a fig about is that you don't run it on more than one PC at a time (though they've got no way to know that if you don't tell them).

Activation .

[Cruddy]

Well Sava. I kind of doubt it's the graphics card...

Because I'm using a TI 64MB and it runs just fine...

My processor is an XP2600 with 333 DDR Ram... Gives about 2GHz of raw speed.

Mind you, I haven't tried half life 2 yet.

I just don't think it's your GFX card.

[Sava]

Originally posted by MrBaggins


Up to 60-65 is fine.

75 or 80 is high.

It starts to be a serious problem at 90.

grrrr then why the **** did it not like the FSB at 133?

[Sava]

Originally posted by optimus2861

It'll prompt you to reactivate again, yes, but there's no limit on how many times you can activate it. At worst, you'll have to phone up Microsoft and rattle off a string of characters, then have a string of characters read back to you. All MS really gives a fig about is that you don't run it on more than one PC at a time (though they've got no way to know that if you don't tell them).

Activation .

this same copy is being run on two computers in my house... I'm sure as hell not going to buy two copies of winXP

[Cruddy]

Originally posted by Sava
this same copy is being run on two computers in my house... I'm sure as hell not going to buy two copies of winXP

I haven't even considered upgrading at the price. 98SE does me just fine.