Can anyone help me make my PC a lean mean fast multimedia machine!?

wekslap

I have a AMD Athlon 64X2 Dual Core Processor 4600+
2.41 GHz, 1 Gb of paired DDR2 800mhz Ram in 2x500mb sticks (my MB only has 2 slots), and a 320 Gb sata2 hard drive. oh and a gigabyte MB.

I use it mainly to surf the net and to download, rip and burn mp3's and CD's and DVD's, and as a giant music jukebox. I also store my digital photos on it but dont do any heavy processing or digital editing or manipulation. Tho onboard sound is fine and so is the picture and video quality.

Ideally I would like to get the absolute max out of it before buying a new one in a year or two's time. I am on a budget and was thinking along the lines of maybe a big hard drive (half to one Gig?) and 2 to 4gb of RAM. also I have heard of "overclocking" but am unsure how to do it or if it is dangerous?

Any advice from any techie experts out there would be greatly appreciated. any advice hints tips or anything maybe I havent thought of to get the absolute most out of my PC before buying a new one would make me eternally gratfefull as I have only a modicum of knowldge on the subject, just enough to get by, and also only a modicum of cash to spend!

thankyou in anticipation,

wekslap. X

rygon

If only using it for basic applications (internet, music, pics etc) then I cant see installing more memory helping much, as they arent strenuous tasks. If your hard drive is getting full (>70%) then i'd get another HD (and backup pics onto disc ..ive learnt my lesson the hard way). Also best to try a spybot s&d scan, and defrag the HD once a mnth or so if you dont already

totalsolutions

1st copy the data on that 320Gb.

Don't over clock as you don't know what you are doing, leave well alone, at worse you will corrupt the drive contents and as you have no backup that option is out.

Getting a 1Gb drive is also not a real world option just yet. You are clearly demonstrating you lack of knowledge here and suggest a little more study first.

I say again buying a 1TB drive means you need to have a way of backing that size up too. You need 2x 1TB drives.

I'm not an AMD user, but Intel as my processor of choice. More speed / power / overhead is a i7 chip.

aliEnRIK

Id recommend 2 gig of ram (Unless you plan on seriously memory intensive applications in which case go for 4)
Id buy a 2nd hardrive for storage purposes. Running your media from that will leave the main hardrive to run the operating system

As solutions said ~ id leave overclocking well alone if you really dont have a clue
Basically by forcing more electric current through it forces the cpu (or graphics card and or RAM) to run quicker
MOST cpus are already running very hot from default and even upping the current just a little can fry the curcuits (They literally begin to melt)
To get around this people use all sorts of 'heatsinks' and fans etc to cool the units down
There are also other dangers in that (For example) upping the current to the cpu usually also ups the RAM current and RAM chips will fry VERY quickly
Personally speaking ive seen very little difference when ive tried it, to warrant giving it a go

Oneday77

What kind of PC building experience do you have?
If its limited then you need to be paranoid and careful.
Upgrading any aspect of your PC will make a difference but it all revolves round the motherboard at the moment. What speed of memory and processors does it support.
Windows XP, Vista 32 and 7 32 cannot see more than 3Gb of memory so probably not worth upgrading. But if it supports DDR2 1066mhz memory then changing it to that will make a slight difference.
If the motherboard can take faster processors like a phenom or better Athlon then go down that route. I suspect you have an AM2 socket board so make sure you don't get an AM3 socket processor.
How old is the hard drive? The performance from them have changed considerably over the last few years. I would recommend the Samsung F* series of HD. Nice, fast and good value. You will however only notice a real difference if you re-install windows to the new drive. If the budget stretches get 2 1/2TB drives. Use one for programs, windows, documents, music, photos and whatever else. The second drive is used to backup all your files from the first drive and also allocate it as the drive for the page file.
Any changes will run the slight posibility of windows needing reactivated, but typically only MB changes cause this. Any of the above changes will cost £60 - £100 and each one will provide a perfomance gain. In the order of : - Processor, Hard Drives then memory.
If you can stretch to £200 and you know what your doing then get a new AM3 motherboard, AthlonII x4 processor and 4GB of DDR3 memory.
If that is all for a later date the only thing you can do that can move to a newer system later will be the harddrives so may be the best option.