Upgrading a desktop.

weeowens

I was thinking of buying a new PC but after updating firefox it seems so much smoother maybe just adding a few faster compnents would be as well.
I thought of adding more memory & upgrading the graphics card.
I currently have windowsXP & 1gb of ram plus thegraphics is :XBL-19 (1280x1024@60Hz)
ATI video (HP)

I can add 1GB of ram for £29 from Crucial.Any ideas re the graphics card upgrade & if it would make a noticeable difference to the PC for general use eg watching BBCi & DVDs?What card would be good eg this one:http://www.ebuyer.com/255113-msi-hd-5450-1gb-64bit-ddr3-dvi-hdmi-vga-pci-e-low-profile-r5450-md1gd3h-lp

The CPU is AMD Sempron 3000+
Palermo 90nm Technology
Plus the fan seems to be poor so would this be a good replacement : http://www.ebuyer.com/248533-xilence-socket-am2-ultra-flat-mini-itx-cpu-cooler-coo-xpcpu-amd-si


The PC is a
Presario SR1609UK


Cheers for looking :-)

phx-web

I would put two of these in, for the memory : (I think your motherboard has 4 memory slots)

aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Memory/DDR/Corsair+1GB+DDR+333MHz%2FPC2700+Memory+Non-ECC+Unbuffered+CL2.5+%5BVS1GB333%5D+?productId=35385

A new Graphics card may make playing DVD's a bit smother and clearer, but as for bbc iPlayer, this really depends on your broadband speeds.

aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards/NVIDIA/NVIDIA+GF+210+Series/GAINWARD+GeForce+G210+1024MB+GDDR3+%22Passive%22+Low+Profile+PCI-Express+Graphics+Card+?productId=47731

rmg1

I would say (as a layman) that increasing the RAM would be good, but someone else may say it's not necessary.
You can probably get it cheaper than on Crucial, just make sure it's the same type/spec.

Have you tried following the speed-up sticky at the top of this forum as other upgrades may not be necessary?

What do you actually use the PC for?

adindas

You could easily get Dell second hand dual core PC with 2GB memory for less than £100.00 on eBay. I got mind for about £80.00 (forgot exact price) a few months ago.

weeowens wrote: »

I was thinking of buying a new PC but after updating firefox it seems so much smoother maybe just adding a few faster compnents would be as well.
I thought of adding more memory & upgrading the graphics card.
I currently have windowsXP & 1gb of ram plus thegraphics is :XBL-19 (1280x1024@60Hz)
ATI video (HP)

I can add 1GB of ram for £29 from Crucial.Any ideas re the graphics card upgrade & if it would make a noticeable difference to the PC for general use eg watching BBCi & DVDs?What card would be good eg this one:http://www.ebuyer.com/255113-msi-hd-5450-1gb-64bit-ddr3-dvi-hdmi-vga-pci-e-low-profile-r5450-md1gd3h-lp

The CPU is AMD Sempron 3000+
Palermo 90nm Technology
Plus the fan seems to be poor so would this be a good replacement : http://www.ebuyer.com/248533-xilence-socket-am2-ultra-flat-mini-itx-cpu-cooler-coo-xpcpu-amd-si


The PC is a
Presario SR1609UK


Cheers for looking :-)

spud17

Increasing ram from 1GB to 2GBs in XP will not give a large increase in performance. IME once over 1 or 1.25GB diminishing returns are fairly drastic.

To echo rmg1, have you run through closeds' sticky?