Half-upgrading old system - worth it?

sutom · 11 Sep 2008 at 16:57

Hi, sorry if this is a bit vague, but I have the following system at the moment which I plan to give to a family member for mainly Office 2007 work and internet browsing:

PSU - Enermax Noisetaker 420W
Mobo - DFI LanParty UT nF4 Ultra-D
CPU - AMD Athlon64 3200+
Ram - GeIL Value 1GB (2x512) DDR PC3200 Dual Channel Kit
GPU - Powercolor ATI Radeon X800XL 256MB
DVD - LG IDE DVD-RW
HDD - Samsung Spinpoint Sata 160GB
Case - Antec SLK3700-BQE
TFT - Samsung 20"

So it's getting on a bit, but it runs basic software fine now. I wondered if it was worth upgrading just the Mobo/CPU/Ram a bit so we could put Vista on it in the future (as it might struggle now surely), and possible without spending much (~£100)?

DDR1 ram is quite expensive so a small memory upgrade doesn't seem great value. Would a new Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2180/E5200, new mobo and 2GB DDR2 (but with same GPU and PSU as above) provide some performance boost?

Or is this there not much point at all if it's just for basic Office work? I'd just like it to run well for them and not fall apart or anything within 6 months. Their current PC is even older so a step up would be great.

Thanks for any help!

Eggman · 11 Sep 2008 at 17:10

just whack another 2x512MB DDR in - like £30 second hand.

Glaucus · 11 Sep 2008 at 17:14

What do you do with it?

Not much point upgrading that system. If you want a cheap boost for gaming more ram and new gfx card. But if you want a proper upgrade about £200-300 in MM could get you a nice system.

Faffer · 11 Sep 2008 at 17:16

Eggman said:
just whack another 2x512MB DDR in - like £30 second hand.

This is a decent upgrade, if all you're doing is running Office and Internet browsing on XP.

Eggman · 11 Sep 2008 at 17:18

I wondered if it was worth upgrading just the Mobo/CPU/Ram a bit so we could put Vista on it in the future (as it might struggle now surely), and possible without spending much (~£100)?

2gb needed for vista to run like a dream - cpu should be fine speed wise.

sutom · 11 Sep 2008 at 17:25

just whack another 2x512MB DDR in - like £30 second hand.

Faffer said:
This is a decent upgrade, if all you're doing is running Office and Internet browsing on XP.

Eggman said:
2gb needed for vista to run like a dream - cpu should be fine speed wise.

Thanks everyone, I think I overestimated what sort of power it would need. Another gig of ram seems best then.

AcidHell2 said:
What do you do with it?
Not much point upgrading that system. If you want a cheap boost for gaming more ram and new gfx card. But if you want a proper upgrade about £200-300 in MM could get you a nice system.

Nah, it's for my mum to work on so no gaming

If it could run Vista Home Premium (will stick with XP if not), Office 2007 and iTunes fine then that would be great.

Should I try and find 2x512mb ram of the exact same kind, or would any DDR PC3200 be ok?

Glaucus · 11 Sep 2008 at 17:28

Tom* said:
Should I try and find 2x512mb ram of the exact same kind, or would any DDR PC3200 be ok?

If thats the case, just get some more ram. If you can find the same stuff it's best. But get the same speed if not. Or just get 2x1gb sticks. and sell the 512 sticks.

I'm on an almost identical system and it's absolutely fine with vista. Although I'm, on dual core and 2gig memory.

Is that a dual core cpu or not? If it's not check the mobo and if you can get a dual core cpu. There cheap and will improve the system to no end.

sutom · 11 Sep 2008 at 17:37

cpu is just single-core, and the mobo is socket 939, so if there's any socket939 AMD X2 Dual Cores around it would be worth getting one yeah?

Glaucus · 11 Sep 2008 at 17:41

Tom* said:
cpu is just single-core, and the mobo is socket 939, so if there's any socket939 AMD X2 Dual Cores around it would be worth getting one yeah?

most certainly would be. I'm sure you could pick one up 2nd hand from an auction for next to nothing. seem to be going for 30-50 but most of tehm are brand new.

ocuk don't sell them any more.

sutom · 11 Sep 2008 at 17:44

Ok, I'll definitely get some ram first then keep a look out for a cpu. Cheers for the speedy help

sutom · 17 Sep 2008 at 16:21

Well I got some more ram - 2x512MB and it's showed up fine as 2GB total now. I just noticed something wierd once it was installed though, wondered if anyone can help?

My A64 3200+ cpu was always running at about 2.0ghz before, but after I installed the new ram it's gone down to around 1.0ghz:

Some more info from PC Wizard:

Summary
Mainboard 01
Mainboard 02
Mainboard 03
Mainboard 04

I notice on the labels the ram timings are slightly different (even though the description was the same on the store where I bought it), but I figured if it was still DDR PC3200 400mhz it might be ok. Is that causing my CPU to run at half speed, and is there anything I can do about it?

As this is really old ram I figured it would be incredibly hard to find any more with the same timings

Thanks for any help!

fobose · 17 Sep 2008 at 16:40

It looks like its some energy saving feature. Try running CPU-Z whilst doing a CPU demanding task just to be sure.

sutom · 17 Sep 2008 at 17:02

Aaah ok, I ran a game and CPU-Z showed the Core Speed go up to 2.0ghz:

Test

I used an AMD utility to enable Cool'n'Quiet a while ago, so you must be right - that's what is doing it. I was just being stupid, sorry :rolleyes:

It just confused me because I've never noticed it change that much before, and it's always shown 2.0ghz in the Windows System tab. So if I want it to stop slowing down I can just disable the Cool'n'Quiet option?

Here's some more CPU-Z screens, which are probably not needed anymore:

cpuz 01
cpuz 02
cpuz 03
cpuz 04
cpuz 05
cpuz 06

cheers