Upgrade help for O L D spec PC?

gazjam

gazjam

gazjam

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Joined
16 Oct 2007
Posts
595
Hi,
I use 2 PCs at home, a selfbuilt 4GB ram/Q6600 Quad/NV 8800GT for work stuff, and a Dell Optiplex GX260SFF I picked up for £50 which I run as a low power consumption 24/7 server, running Bittorrent, Print server and Music Server software for my Squeezebox streaming music player.

The big PC is a power hog, so I tend to use the wee Dell as my general purpose, Web, Email, MS Office machine.

I love it for what it is, it costs buttons to run, does its job and just.....works.

Its just a TINY bit less snappy than I'd like it to be though, especially now as I've ported over all my MS Office, Email duties to it.
Notice it most when browsing teh web - as more sites get Flash content, embedded video etc the wee Dell struggles to keep up sometimes.

So I'd like to give it a little shot in the arm, just to boost it a wee bit. ;)

Any suggestions guys?
Heres the spec.

2.0 Ghz P4 Cpu
1GB Ram
On board video, on board sound

I was running a stripped down version of XP on it, have tried Linux too (wasn't for me!) but amazingly enough, Windows 7 (Legit student copy:p) runs on it as sweet as a nut! No slower (and possibly even a smidge faster) than stripped down XP!
Plus, as I'm using it more for day to say stuff, its a lot more pleasant to use.

I'm thinking upgrade the Ram to 2GB or the CPU to a 3GHz model?
Would in fact a graphics card make using the web more snappy like I'm looking for?

Budget = SHOESTRING!

Thanks for any replies! :)
 
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what budget you looking at?
If you can afford it Id look at a new mobo/cpu/ram combo along lines of:
Asus M4A785D-M Pro AMD 785G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £57.99 (£50.43)
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 245 2.90GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £50.99 (£44.34)
OcUK 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel £36.98 (£32.16)
Total: £145.97

That would be a decent shot in the arm :) Oh and the athlons are nice n low powered to so would suit this side of things
 
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Being more specific, I guess I was asking which of my two options (more ram or faster cpu) would be best to make the PC a bit more snappy.

A general question I guess?

(I dont really NEED or can afford to spend a lot of money building a new PC - its just a server/ email/web machine - no games etc)

Thanks. :)
 
Easy enough to see if memory will help at all; some time when you're using it normally, just pop open task manager and see what's in use. If you're close to full (say over 90% memory used) or even maxxed out and into virtual, then that's your best bet.

If you're not getting close to the limit, won't make a jot of difference; go for the CPU.

Also beware the hard drive as a source of generic windows slowness ^^
 
Hey Eddie thanks for that!

I'm maxing out the CPU quite often running Firefox, ram seems fine (438MB of 1GB used)

A faster CPU is the way forward.


Thanks!
 
gazjam said:
I'm maxing out the CPU quite often running Firefox, ram seems fine (438MB of 1GB used)
Click to expand...

Wow, if you're maxing the CPU on firefox, check you're updated to the latest version - might be a bad release. Occasionally see my FF get stuck at high usage (close/re-open fixes it), but mostly never even makes a rumble. Guess flash games (especially badly written ones) might make for a higher load though ^^
 
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