What to upgrade to?

heatherw_01

I have a SN41G2 shuttle pc with

• 512mb of ram (shared with inbuild graphics card)
• 128mb Geforce 4mx graphics card inbuilt

Should I upgrade both my ram and card?

Any ideas of anything good to get?

T4i

Depends what you want to do?

Do you play the latest games? How many RAM slots does your shuttle have? How many are already used?

Make sure the shuttle has a graphics slot too, and the onboard graphics can be disabled.

T4i

Or what model is it?

http://eu.shuttle.com/en/Desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-3/

heatherw_01

Forgot to say I want to surf etc and play The Sims 2, including all expansions packs which currently kills my machine. It makes it so painfully slow.

Model: SN41G2

It has 2 slots for Ram max 2gb. Both currently used so I was hoping to replace the existing RAM.

I am hoping I can disable the current graphics card although I am not sure how I would do this?

T4i

Chassis
G2-type chassis made of aluminum, silver color
storage bays: 1 x 5.25", 2 x 3.5" (1 internal)
dimensions: 30 x 20 x 18.5 cm (LWH)
weight: 2.85 kg net / 4.65 kg gross
Mainboard
Shuttle FN41, Shuttle form factor, proprietary design for SN41G2
chipset: NVIDIA nForce2 (Crush 18G)
Award V6.0PG BIOS, 4MBit flash memory
with hardware monitoring and ACPI power management functions
dimensions: 25.4 x 18.5 cm
Power supply unit
200 Watt mini PSU, supports 115/230V
connectors: 20-pin ATX, 4-pin ATX12V
Processor support
Socket A supports AMD Athlon XP und Duron processors
at 333, 266 oder 200 FSB, supports Sempron,
supports Burn Proof CPU protection for Athlon XP
Processor cooling system
Shuttle I.C.E. (Integrated Cooling Engine)
advanced Heatpipe technology
smart fan control, 80mm cooling fan
Memory support
2 x 184 pin slots, supports Dual Channel
supports PC3200/2700/2100/1600 (DDR400/333/266/200) DDR SDRAM memory
up to a total size of 2GB
Caution: DDR400 is only supported in conjunction with an additional (plugged-in) AGP-graphics card
no support of buffered or ECC-modules
Expansion slots
1 x AGP 8X/4X (1,5V only)
1 x 32 Bit PCI (v2.2)
Integrated graphics controller, Dual VGA
Northbridge with integrated GeForce4 MX graphics processor
up to 128MB Shared Memory (UMA)
Highend-256Bit-2D/3D-accelerator
nView Dual-Display-architecture
integrated 300MHz D/A-converter
max. resolution: 1920x1440
including TV output
6-channel Audio
Realtek ALC650 5.1 channel audio controller
AC97 v2.2 compiant
analog: line-out (6-ch), microphone, CD-in, AUX
digital: optical SPDIF output
LAN controller
Realtek 8201BL Fast Ethernet network controller
supports 10 / 100 MBit/s opteration
Firewire controller
IEEE1394 Firewire controller Realtek 8801
with 3 Firewire connectors (1x front and 2x rear)
supports 400Mb/s, 200Mb/s, 100Mb/s data transfer rate
Drive connectors
2 x IDE ATA 133 drives
1 x floppy disk drive
Front-panel I/O
Microphone
Headphone (Line-out)
2x USB 2.0
Firewire (6 pol.)
optical SPDIF output
Back-panel I/O
2 x VGA monitor connectors
TV out (S-video/composite)
2 x Firewire (6 pin)
PS/2 for mouse and keyboard
LAN (RJ45)
2 x USB 2.0
6-ch Audio line-out (2x rear/front, bass/center)
Serial port (COM)
optional Wireless LAN module
optional parallel port
Other onboard connectors
2 x USB 2.0 (total 6x)
1 x CDROM input
1 x AUX
1 x Infrared interface
3 x fan connectors

So yes, you can upgrade to a AGP graphics card taking a whole lot of load from your RAM. If you are only playing Sims I wouldnt go for owt too flashy though, I'd increase your rAM to 1gig if possible. Not sure what your FSB is running at though so we need to know that until we can look for deals. I think the 6600GT AGP is a good buy, I have one and it runs new games on fairly high detail.

T4i

and because your mobo is a Nforce2 you may find that it does dual channel. So you could look at getting 2x512mb RAM in dual channel.

heatherw_01

MY FSB is 333

I would have liked an Nvidia card if poss.

T4i

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=8182

Sparkle GF 6600GT 128MB DDR 8x AGP, DVI, TV Out, Retail - £98.82

You may not want a sparkle, this is where the prices differ.

heatherw_01

I was looking for a card under £70 if poss and was possibly interested in nvidia again.

T4i

RAM http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=55296

People will find better deals, just a question of spending time looking for special deals etc.

heatherw_01

I currently have PC2700 333mhz I thought this was the max I could use?

How can I use PC3200 400mhz?