What would be a good upgrade for this PC?

[BaldEagl]

{small voice}

What BE meant to say was quad pumped CPU (# of cores doesn't matter - or at least, I've never read so)  on a 1333 FSB = 1333/4 = 333.333 clock cycle

Yes, I know,there's one in every crowd ...

P.S. I just realized that my post could be taken as though I'm supporting the argument against faster RAM.  I meant it neither for or against, simply a clarification of the calculation.

PPS. OK, I looked at the thread in depth, and now I'm really confused,  I just shouldn't be looking at this stuff at 3 in the morning when I can't sleep.  I have to be missing something stupid, because I don't get the arguments against (potentially) upgrading RAM. His current memory is limited to 6.4 GB/s max.  With no processor overclock the system clock is set to 333, and the memory clock for DDR2 800 is 200, so the motherboard is using a 6:5 divider.  So how wouldn't DDR2 1066 at 8.5 GB/s max be a better solution, regardless of the 8:5 divider (if I looked it up right)?

Assuming reasonable timings on the DDR2 1066, why are you guys saying that faster RAM would be "worthless"?  It might not be cost effective, but I don't see where the argument that  or   apply.

As far as I know, assuming no OC on either processor or RAM, that's not going to happen until he gets memory that has to be clocked faster than the processor clock (which is 333 MHZ without any OC, and would correspond to something like DDR2 1333 (actually, something beyond that since DDR2 1333 - which AFAIK doesn't exist - would be where you'd get to a 1:1 divider, or "synced" memory ).  DDR2 1066 is still only clocked at 266 Mhz.  And would be as much as 1/3 faster on memory intensive operations.

<S>

It's not a quad pumped CPU.  It's a double pumped dual core.  The math is still a multiple of four.

As far as memory transfer rates that's fine as long as the RAM can deliver on it's promise.  That brings us to the next paragraph.

What SectorNine50 said.  DDR2 667 runs on a core clock of 333.33, DDR2 800 runs on a 400 clock and DDR2 1066 on a clock of 533.  He's already running a faster RAM clock than his CPU core clock and so the RAM he has is already waiting for the CPU.  It makes no sense to go faster with RAM than what you need.  Once the clocks are synced it might be worth something to look for lower latencies but that's a marginal real world performance gain.  Not worth spending on as an upgrade but maybe if you were looking for benchmark bragging rights or if you were building it into the initial investment.

So back to two paragraphs ago, the RAM can't deliver it's maximum performance so the memory transfer rates go out the window.

Oh, one last thing.  It's the asynchronous interaction between the CPU and RAM on different clock cycles that leads to the degradation in performance using faster RAM as they occasionally miss a beat so to speak.

[SectorNine50]

It's not a quad pumped CPU.  It's a double pumped dual core.  The math is still a multiple of four.

Is this the case?  Mind linking a source (Not that I don't believe you, I just would like to read about it)?  That would mean each core is running at half of the total frequency, and that their speeds together are additive.  I was under the impression that both cores were doing 4 cycles before dumping to the FSB.

[jimson]

Asyncronous, bus speed ram clock multipliers?   Man you guys lost me on the first page.

I appreciate all the advice. I built this PC from component, but about all I feel comfortable doing is swapping out cards and such.

I may have a line on a legitimate free copy of win7pro 64 bit, and I think I'll start shopping video cards to start with.

If I ever decide to try any sort of OCing it's obvious I'll need to do a lot of research first.



And carry on, I might be learning stuff here.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

You totally misunderstood what I was saying.

I'm saying, that right now, he's at 1333/4=333.25Mhz FSB, and his RAM is at 800/2=400Mhz.  He's already A-Sync, to sync he'd have to downclock his RAM to 666.4 (333.25 pre-multiplier).  I'm very familiar with bus and RAM speeds, there is no reasons to belittle me.  I wasn't aware of the tests on Tom's Hardware, but I had always personally gone for sync'd speeds just because I thought it made sense.

Basically what I was saying was that because he's already A-Sync, going to higher speed RAM would be a technical upgrade.  I never once told him he should do it.

In that case I'm sorry because I read something likes of "He can't achieve sync speeds with his current ram since his motherboard doesn't support going to (false idea of sync) 1333 anyway'.

In his case he might actually get a better overall performance if he did cut his multiplier to two and be in sync.

[SectorNine50]

In that case I'm sorry because I read something likes of "He can't achieve sync speeds with his current ram since his motherboard doesn't support going to (false idea of sync) 1333 anyway'.

In his case he might actually get a better overall performance if he did cut his multiplier to two and be in sync.

Pretty interesting that they are cranking up memory speeds so high considering most FSB's are 200-333.  Although, I guess now that processors tend to have the memory controller built into them, chances are they benefit greatly from faster RAM.

I personally did the above; bought 800Mhz RAM, sync'd it to 200, then overclocked my FSB to 300 (My motherboard capped there, unfortunately).  Hopefully when I get my new MB, I can get the sucker up to 350+ on air cooling...

Gotta love high multiplier, low FSB!

[Ghastly]

I may have a line on a legitimate free copy of win7pro 64 bit, and I think I'll start shopping video cards to start with.

Sorry for the diversion into the theoretical. 

I agree, a video card is your best candidate for a best bang for the buck upgrade, even more so than an OS change (although if it's free, it doesn't count.) I might suggest that you do not limit yourself to Nvidia cards, ATI was generally the best bang for the buck last I checked once you move away from the low-end.  The 5770 is a pretty decent performer for around $150 and it's hard to go wrong with the 5850 if you want to spend another hundred bucks or so.

What I'd suggest doing is determining what your budget is, going here

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2010-gaming-graphics-charts-high-quality/benchmarks,111.html

picking the resolution you want to run at, and whether or not you feel strongly about antialiasing, and use the "Sum of FPS Benchmarks" at whatever is closest to your resolution and AA choices. 
If your not sure, I'd suggest you use  Sum of FPS Benchmarks 1920x1200 with anti aliasing, 4AA (High Quality)

Then, look at how the card choices in your budget range compare in the benchmark vs their cost.  Make sure you realize that CF and SLI means more than one card, and not to compare those results!

Also take note that unless you do upgrade OS to 64 bit, anything over a 1GB card is going to start drastically affecting the amount of memory XP has available, so bear that in mind as you move up the scale to cards with more than 1GB of RAM.

<S>

[Infidelz]

Before upgrading your vid, you should verify the specs on your PCIE slots. The older MBs are not PCIe 2.0 and to unleash the full potential I would think the right slot could make a difference. However, if it does run on your board a newer card would be more compatible for a future MB upgrade.

You have a pretty fast processor for your current mb and the max memory for XP 32. Any MB upgrades would logically lead to a more capable (i5/i7) and these require new everything (memory/cpu). Think its worth while to get a quad core?

A SDD drive is worth a look but requires Win7, which is rumored to be coming out in October with a 3 pac for $150.

There is a new SDD drive which requires a x4 PCIE slot - does a 580 mb read. Unfortunately I don't have one of those on my p43 MB and will have to go with a rampage III formula. that means memory and a CPU. It bothers me that the chip industry is working in this fashion to force huge investments in PCs in order to stay current every 2 or 3 years. They could easily stick with the same form factor for 5 years and squeeze everything out of it but that would affect their current cash flow model.  


Infidelz.
SIOA

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Before upgrading your vid, you should verify the specs on your PCIE slots. The older MBs are not PCIe 2.0 and to unleash the full potential I would think the right slot could make a difference. However, if it does run on your board a newer card would be more compatible for a future MB upgrade.

No current single GPU card requires more than x16 pci-e 1.0 so he's fine.

[BaldEagl]

Is this the case?  Mind linking a source (Not that I don't believe you, I just would like to read about it)?  That would mean each core is running at half of the total frequency, and that their speeds together are additive.  I was under the impression that both cores were doing 4 cycles before dumping to the FSB.

I don't remember where I read that but do remember reading it at several sources as I was preparing to OC my CPU.  It makes sense when you think about synching the CPU and RAM in that each core operates with relative indepencence.  As I'm sure you're aware there are times where a single core is taking almost the entire load.  I see this regularily on my system monitor.  My CPU is an E6750 2.66 Ghz Core2Duo OC'd to 3.2 Ghz on a 1600 FSB linked and synched to 4 Gb DDR2 800 Kinston HyperX (4-4-4-12).  Unfortunately I'm running 32 bit XP Pro and only see 3.25 Gb of my RAM (eVGA 8800 GTS G92 512 Mb GPU) but it does everything I need it to do so I'm happy.

I look occasionally at possible upgrades but I'm just not that far behind the curve yet to make it worthwhile.

Oh... and to the OP, your best upgrade would be a new GPU along with a CPU OC.  You might have to get a better air cooler but that can be done cheaply (mine was under $30 for a 10-15 C drop in temps).  I'd skip the OS unless it's free and look for a GPU with under 1 Gb of memory.  Contrary to what others have said you would see a performance gain going to a 9800 GTX+ although marginal compared to a newer card.  The plus side of that idea is it's inexpensive at this point.  If your MB is SLI compatible another cheap idea would be to find another card just like the one you have on ebay (verify the part number is the same) and slap that in in SLI.  I guarantee you'd run everything in AH on max.  Getting a 20% OC on an Intel CPU is easy.  PM me if you want details.

[jimson]

That's a possibility too.

If I get a free/cheap 64 bit OS, I have 2 more gigs of corsair ram I could scavenge out of an unused PC. I could have 6gigs of ram and 2 8800gt's in SLI probably for less than 200 bucks.

[Masherbrum]

That's a possibility too.

If I get a free/cheap 64 bit OS, I have 2 more gigs of corsair ram I could scavenge out of an unused PC. I could have 6gigs of ram and 2 8800gt's in SLI probably for less than 200 bucks.

Just make sure you're running Dual Channel on the RAM, running 6GB on Single Channel would be slower than 4GB of Dual.   My $.02.

[BoilerDown]

The RAM discussion lack relevance IMO. 

If I were you, and I almost have the same setup, except that I have an E8500 and a GTX260 instead of what you have, I'd upgrade the video card, because that's the only thing that's really lacking, to whatever near-top-of-the-line AMD video card you want to pay for, and sit on the rest of your money and wait.  Don't worry about the RAM thing because even if you get a 1GB video card, the Win32 addressable memory problem is not going to slow down your system for whatever applications you likely actually run, let alone Aces High.  Don't upgrade the OS yet either.  Yes you have memory "wasted", but its a sunk cost at this point as you don't gain enough with an OS upgrade or memory upgrade or both to warrant the cost(s).  Put that money aside and wait for something worth spending it on to come on out.

[jimson]

The RAM discussion lack relevance IMO.  

If I were you, and I almost have the same setup, except that I have an E8500 and a GTX260 instead of what you have, I'd upgrade the video card, because that's the only thing that's really lacking, to whatever near-top-of-the-line AMD video card you want to pay for, and sit on the rest of your money and wait.  Don't worry about the RAM thing because even if you get a 1GB video card, the Win32 addressable memory problem is not going to slow down your system for whatever applications you likely actually run, let alone Aces High.  Don't upgrade the OS yet either.  Yes you have memory "wasted", but its a sunk cost at this point as you don't gain enough with an OS upgrade or memory upgrade or both to warrant the cost(s).  Put that money aside and wait for something worth spending it on to come on out.

That may be the direction I go as this MOBO doesn't support SLI, but I do have free memory to upgrade to 6 gigs and likely a nearly free 64 bit OS.

So only the vid card is a matter of cost.

[Getback]

definitely upgrade the vc.

Another thing is you may want to over clock that puppy a tad. that would make a huge difference. Get some pointers first.

[Chalenge]

I still say the 9800 GTX is a waste and not enough improvement to warrant spending money over. In fact the performance benefit is just like the older SLI improvements that people were referring to as wasteful. Unfortunately the 9800s have slid right off most comparison sites already (because its not much different from the 8800s).

Anandtech has a video benchmark comparison page you should check out:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU/88

Bear in mind when using that that CF means crossfire (two cards) and SLI means scaleable link interface (two cards). Except for the fact that you cant use two cards I would suggest two 460s in SLI which outperform a 480. Probably your PSU wouldnt handle it though. I will suggest Evga because they have the best warranty going.

I would stay away from SSDs. The only thing (mostly) an SSD can do for you is program startup time. After Windows has started a program the first time every startup thereafter will be just as fast as an SSD because of the windows cache.