The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Here's My Current Specs...What should I upgrade?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by kentl901, Oct 28, 2009.

  1. kentl901

    kentl901 Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    5
    Messages:
    182
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Hey all,

    I have 6 year old tower that I built myself when I had a bunch of free time as a high school student.

    With school and all, I no longer have time and not as much money to upgrade my comp. This rig has been running well from day 1. I would love to continue to use it until it can no longer turn out. That seems unlikely. I keep my computers in tip top shape. None has died... even my 133Mhz IBM Aptiva tower..

    Anyway, this is my current setup:

    Intel P4 w/ HT 3.0Ghz (Northwood)
    ABit AI7 motherboard
    1GB DDR RAM Dual Channel
    ATI Radeon 9800 PRO
    120GB HDD 7200RPM
    Win7 Ultimate

    If I upgrade the RAM, how noticeable would the performance be? The computer is pretty snappy still, but once I open a few Windows, watch some Hulu, the computer starts to slow a tad.. Graphics isn't an issue at all. I don't plan on gaming with this computer. The Windows Experience Rating rated my CPU as a 3.9 (which is lowest out of all of the other categories). For what I do, my CPU is more than sufficient...

    Any other suggestions? Thanks!
     
    kentl901, Oct 28, 2009
    #1
  2. Samot

    Samot Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    224
    Messages:
    610
    Likes Received:
    334
    Trophy Points:
    76
    For desktop related questions you have desktopreview.
     
    Samot, Oct 28, 2009
    #2
  3. DrKnow65

    DrKnow65 Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    21
    Messages:
    37
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    SSD hard drive (80GB X25-M Intel Gen2, keep your HDD for bulk) and 4GB of ram.

    :) Sorry, I know it's the notebook forum but still, he asked :)
     
    DrKnow65, Oct 28, 2009
    #3
  4. K-TRON

    K-TRON Hi, I'm Jimmy Diesel ^_^

    Reputations:
    4,412
    Messages:
    8,077
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    205
    Adding a second GB of memory will increase performance. DDR memory is still quite expensive, you should check ebay and hardforum for good deals on it.

    A faster harddrive may help, I dont know if your motherboard supports SATA drives, if it does you have a lot of upgrade options.

    The best way to find the bottleneck is to open task manager with alot of windows open and your hulu.
    If cpu usage is full than its your processor being the bottleneck
    If the memory is full than the memory is your bottleneck.

    K-TRON
     
    K-TRON, Oct 28, 2009
    #4
  5. kentl901

    kentl901 Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    5
    Messages:
    182
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Thanks for the info!
     
    kentl901, Oct 28, 2009
    #5
  6. Kdawgca

    Kdawgca rotaredoM repudrepuS RBN

    Reputations:
    5,855
    Messages:
    8,609
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    206
    Notebookreview is currently closed for desktop related discussions/questions. Please make a new thread over a desktopreview.com. Registration may be necessary.

    Thanks for your cooperation.
     
    Kdawgca, Oct 29, 2009
    #6