Bottlenecking

Amd_Athon_God · 16 Aug 2009 at 17:41

Hey people slight problem i want to upgrade my ram to 4gb but im a bit worried bout bottlenecking would it or not that is the question lol well to cut to the chase heres my specs

DualCore AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2502 MHz (10 x 250) Overclocked to 2.5ghz
ATI Radeon HD 4650 (512 MB)
Corsair DDR2 Twin 2X 2048 Kit 800 Mhz Pc6400 4-4-412

Want to upgrade to
Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Kit CL5 1.8v

michael baxter · 16 Aug 2009 at 17:48

Hi, not sure what you mean by bottlenecking here, but the amount of RAM you need will be related to your PC usage/OS.

What do you use your PC for?

What OS do you use?

Amd_Athon_God · 16 Aug 2009 at 17:53

Gaming

and xp pro 32bit

Amd_Athon_God · 16 Aug 2009 at 18:16

Anyone ?

JonJ678 · 16 Aug 2009 at 18:20

Doesn't work like that. Check task manager when doing whatever you normally do. If there's a load of memory free, you're fine. If not, then get some more.

Again, I don't think spending money on this computer is the way to go. Sell it for whatever you can get and build anew, if you can't fund that stick with it in its present state and start saving hard

cmndr_andi · 16 Aug 2009 at 18:31

Yea, i'd suggest that if you play a lot of games -it's not the memory but the CPU and GPU that are holding you back.

If you are using XP I think you will find there is plenty of free memory, even when playing games.

As jon said, a full upgrade (new build) is the way to go in your situation if you want better performance.

Quick question, is the CPU socket 939 or AM2?

Amd_Athon_God · 16 Aug 2009 at 18:40

939 i think

D D Danneh · 16 Aug 2009 at 18:42

4GB should be enough for anyone, and RAM is barely ever a bottleneck.

cmndr_andi · 16 Aug 2009 at 18:50

Amd_Athon_God said:
939 i think

Ok, good to know. I used to have one of them (like 2 years ago) and it was a bit too slow and hot then (plus it didn't overclock too well).

If I were you, save the money for the RAM upgrade (I think 4GB of DDR1 is rather expensive) and put it towards a future system upgrade.

El Jimben · 16 Aug 2009 at 22:12

Amd_Athon_God said:
939 i think

You can't use DDR2 with socket 939 so it must be AM2.

Amd_Athon_God · 16 Aug 2009 at 23:01

No its deff 939

ShockTherapy · 16 Aug 2009 at 23:09

You may not get the full use of your 4GB with a 32-Bit version of Windows...

cmndr_andi · 17 Aug 2009 at 00:56

Ok, so you have S939 and DDR2 RAm, what is the motherboard you are running this with?

Also, as said above you will want to upgrade to a 64 bit version of Windows Vista or Windows 7 to get a decect OS that makes use of all of your new RAM (4GB+).

El Jimben · 17 Aug 2009 at 18:40

Amd_Athon_God said:
No its deff 939

Then you have DDR not DDR2 and in which case as above, getting 4GB will be expensive and you'd be much better off saving up for a full system upgrade.

blaineoliver · 17 Aug 2009 at 19:16

The 939 stuff sells very well on the bay, and you could buy a new system without spending much at all from overclockers with the profits.