IS IT WORTH THE UPGRADE

[Thebug]

Hi there all. just a quick question. im trying to upgrade my pc without spending too much again.

current spec:
pentium d 930 3.0ghz
asus p5ld2- deluxe mobo
2gb giel ddr2 4.4.4.12
connect 3d x1800xt gfx
80gb maxtor (c drive)
250gb maxtor (d drive)
300gb maxtor (e drive)
300gb maxtor (f drive)
320gb maxtor (g drive)
2 pioneer 111 dvdr
ernermax libety 500w psu
asus silent square cooler
Dell 22" lcd monitor
vista home premium

In vista i get a rating of 4.8
it says the prossesor is letting it down as everthing else is on 5.9

Its the office and genral usage side of things i want to speed up
as i dont play games on it

I have seen the pentium d 945 on ocuk for £115 and was wondering if this would make much difference overall

i dont want to go through changing the mobo as i only done it 6 months ago
and that is the biggest chip i can put on that board

suggestions please

 

[Mr Paul]

E6300 Core 2 Duo if your mobo supports it...

 

[BillytheImpaler]

E6300 Core 2 Duo if your mobo supports it...

Seconded.

EDIT: It looks like that board doesn't like the C2D. In this case I'd say get the E6300 and a DS3.

 

[jaykay]

but he doesnt want to change the motherboard

 

[Thebug]

Yea according to the asus site the highest i can go is a 3.6 dual core but these are hard to find

will i see much difference in going from a 3.0 to a 3.4

 

[Tetras]

office and genral usage side of things

Can you be more specific on what is slow for you in both a (naming) specific application(s) and multi-tasking sense?

 

[Thebug]

Boot times, browsing the net and just waiting for things to open.

its prob that i have just got used to it and want it quicker

I have even tried overclocking cpu and memory but didnt get very far

 

[Corasik]

For office applications, and general usage a P4 3Ghz is more than enough processing power.

You already have 2Gb of ram, which is pretty much optimal for Windows 32bit Editions (XP and Vista).

I'd suggest you take a look at your hard drives, in particular the 'C' Drive. Maxtors arnt the quickest drives on the planet, I assume your motherboard supports SATA, and the fastest SATA drive would be the Western Digital Raptors. Seagate 7200.10's are also blisteringly fast compared to most other drives, but still slow compared to raptors in terms of random seek times.

With windows, and your applications running off a raptor you should notice a considerable improvement in the 'feel' of your PC.

Also make sure you have HyperThreading enabled, as far as windows is concerned a P4 with HT enabled will show up as two CPU's. It doesnt offer much in the way of extra performance, but it does seem to improve the responsiveness of Windows in general.

Not 100% sure that HDTACH will run on Vista, but give it a try, and see what performance levels your hard drives are actually giving.

As for web browsing, even the cheapest PC should be limited by your broadband speed, so for faster browsing, you'll need a faster connection.