upgrading or replacing

ukjoel

Have had my pc getting on for 4 years now and looking to replace with a better model. However when I look at whats about the technology doesnt seem to have moved on and yet mine does feel slow. I mainly use it for work and internet but I do like playing games on there as well so need the performance there.

Chip is an intel core 2 quad 2.33. Looking around the new ones on systems priced at £500 ish dont seem that much better or faster.

Ram is only 2gb - was going to upgrade to 8gb but on a 32 bit op system so limited to 4gb.

Graphics card is a 256 mid range card.

Question is - where do I spend the money. If I bought it would probably be second hand on ebay. Is it worth spending the money on a new op sys so I can push it 8gb of ram, and then upspec the graphics card or do I put that money (£200 by my estimate) towards a better system.

Appreciate any thoughts.

macman

Assuming you are running Vista, start with another 2GB of RAM, and then uprate the graphics card.
But it may just be that you need a good clean-up of your system to get rid of all the junk that Windows accumulates. Start with CCleaner, free download. And a defrag might help. Do them both before you spend any money.

RussJK

CPU should be fast enough (Intel Q8300?). As Macman said, some memory will help, and so might a new graphics card.

A HijackThis log might give some ideas on why it feels slow. Needs to be run as administrator, otherwise it gives the warning about the HOSTS file. Just scan and save a log, and post the log that comes up in Notepad:
http://www.trendmicro.com/ftp/products/hijackthis/beta/HijackThis.exe

Also suggest a Malwarebytes QUICK scan, feel free to post the log: http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam-download.php

Hammyman

Unless you are gaming and/or doing a lot of photo and video editing you will not benefit from any hardware upgrades at all other than swapping out your hard drives for SSD ones or adding a SSD one to install the OS and apps on and put your documents on the original drive.

RussJK

They are gaming, so the memory will help and so might a new graphics card.

Can't find the 2gb vs 3gb vs 4gb charts I had, but essentially 2GB was fine for most things, but overall 3GB was better for many applications. 4gb made no real difference to general tasks or gaming, just a very slight increase in performance due to the dual channel.

Beyond 4gb it's silly unless there's a specific application that uses the memory, or you make a RAM drive and get SSD-like performance by installing a game on it, or putting the swap file on it:
3gb vs 6gb vs 12gb http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-module-upgrade,2264-6.html

scheming_gypsy

macman wrote: »

Assuming you are running Vista, start with another 2GB of RAM, and then uprate the graphics card.

I'd go for that.

But it may just be that you need a good clean-up of your system to get rid of all the junk that Windows accumulates. Start with CCleaner, free download. And a defrag might help. Do them both before you spend any money.

but not that. After 4 years the machine is probably running exactly the same as it was when it came out of the box. I'd go for a rebuild from scratch; just blast everything and start again - if they have a copy of the OS that is.

Toxteth_OGrady

RussJK wrote: »

, or you make a RAM drive and get SSD-like performance by installing a game on it, or putting the swap file on it

Notwithstanding the link, general consensus is putting swap on a RAM drive is an exercise in futility.

Think about it, the reason for paging to disk is because you are low on volatile memory.

So to tie up more memory by creating a virtual disk to page is a bit silly and likely to decrease performance.

RussJK

Toxteth_OGrady wrote: »

Think about it, the reason for paging to disk is because you are low on volatile memory.

Not the only reason. Some applications use the swap file by default, regardless of the need - ergo why such applications perform better with a swap file on a faster medium.

Keep in mind that I'm not actually advocating this, just exploring the limits of excess RAM and it's usefulness.

Toxteth_OGrady wrote: »

So to tie up more memory by creating a virtual disk to page is a bit silly and likely to decrease performance.

On a system with silly amounts of excess RAM, how? Only if you didn't leave enough memory for the OS. Using some of that RAM on a RAM drive is probably the only way it'll ever be used for a lot of gamers.

Toxteth_OGrady

RussJK wrote: »

Using some of that RAM on a RAM drive is probably the only way it'll ever be used for a lot of gamers.

Agreed for apps. I use SSDs but also use a RAM disk to minimise writes to the SSD by using the RAM disk for temp directories and browsers' cache. Also good for setting up NTFS junctions. Just disagree for swap space (from what I've read and my understanding of it). :beer:

fwor

By coincidence I've just built a new PC based quite closely on the OP's 4 year old system, but with most of the minor tweaks mentioned above.

4GB of low CAS latency RAM, a small 16GB SSD for the OS and a RAM based filespace for temp files. The SSD gives fantastic boot times (8 seconds from OS selection to user login) and Firefox is really snappy now it's not putting temp files on hard disk. The great thing is that the old spec Core 2 Quad CPUs are such good value for money compared to the current i-series.

I'd agree that all you probably need is a clean OS install and a bit more RAM (because of Vista).

RussJK

Definitely getting interested in SSDs, once I can justify the cost