"Old" hardware?

[silverdreams]

Hi everyone. I'm new here.

I was doing some testing and benchmarking last night on my computer (which I built myself a couple years ago), and I was alarmed to see that while nearly all my hardware used to be the best performing out of computers with similar configurations, it's now the WORST performing out of computers with similar configurations! Now, this is the first computer I've built myself, and the first time I've actually bothered to do benchmarking on a system, so please forgive my ignorance, but what gives? Does hardware performance decrease over time because of aging of the physical components? All my drivers are up-to-date, Windows is also completely up-to-date, my hard drives are defragged, I have no viruses or spyware that I'm aware of, and I recently uninstalled a bunch of useless programs and scrubbed out the registry. How about drivers? Does using the newest drivers on older hardware hurt performance?

Wah, I feel so stupid. I should know this stuff. :freak:

Oh, and my setup, if it matters:

3.2 GHz P4 w/ HT
ASUS P5P800 SE mobo
2 GB of RAM
256 MB Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT video card
2x 320 GB hard drives
Plextor dual-layer DVD burner
media card reader
2Wire wireless card
Windows XP Home Edition

 

[Brinson]

I think alot of people running benchmarks on slightly older hardware are OCing.

Could be wrong, though.

I also don't know what you mean by "similar configurations". My guess is if they were similar, they'd be the ones you score next to. They obviously have something different, ie, a higherend GPU. You're pretty close to the max speed of a P4 and a good amount of ram so the only worthwile upgrade would be GPU.

 

[silverdreams]

By "similar configurations," I mean almost exactly the same hardware, with only a really minor difference, like less RAM or smaller hard drive. They had the same CPU, GPU, and mobo. Think they're overclocking, then? They didn't score MASSIVELY higher, just enough to upset me. LOL.

 

[Luke]

well your gpu is lowering your score, even going to a 7600gt would put you up. where did u do your benchmarks?

 

[silverdreams]

I used PassMark PerformanceTest and PCPitStop.