Getting the best out of my PC

[Captain Murphy]

I've got a pretty decent computer and I'm trying to figure out how I can get the best performance out of it. I'm thinking about making some upgrades but I'm not sure what I should upgrade or if I even should. Heres some of my specs:
CPU Type Intel Pentium 4, 3000 MHz (15 x 200)
Motherboard Name Asus P4P800-E Deluxe (5 PCI, 1 AGP, 1 WiFi, 4 DDR DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN, IEEE-1394)
Video Adapter ATI Radeon X1950 GT (256 MB)
Windows xp
2gbs of ram

I'm planning on getting hellgate london and I want to be able to get the most out of my gameplay with my system. What I might be thinking is maybe its time for me to look into a new cpu or overclocking. I've never overclocked before but I feel like I could use some type of a boost and my graphics card is fairly new even though its agp. What kind of things might I benefit from in my game play if I overclock my cpu or get a better one? It seems like I'm getting some type of lag in games but it doesn't seem like its a graphics problem more like a load thing so that leads me to think its the cpu. What do you guys think?

 

[Preacher]

Well your CPU is a little old , and your Graphics is AGP..... Although I do not know what the requirements for Hellgate are.... But I think you'll be able to run it.

 

[Captain Murphy]

I know I could run it but would I really benefit that much gaming wise if I overclocked or got a new cpu?

 

[Preacher]

Yeah you would, but that would mean a whole new system.

 

[Merkwürdigeliebe]

It's too bad that X1950GT is not PCIE, because it still has plenty of potential to run games... that P4 however, is going to slow you down...

 

[Captain Murphy]

It's too bad that X1950GT is not PCIE, because it still has plenty of potential to run games... that P4 however, is going to slow you down...

Yea thats what I was thinking. I thought I read somewhere you can get some type of an adapter for PCI motherboards so they can run agp cards. Is that true or am I just hallucinating?

 

[Preacher]

Maybe there are adapters but I wouldn't suggest it , since the card will consume more power and the mobo might not have enough juice. Second reason is the cards frequency is higher then AGP and that's what your mobo supports.

 

[jordo_99]

well your cpu is going to be the bottleneck in that computer...problem is that to upgrade it you need to upgrade the motherboard...and if you go with a new processor then you'll have to upgrade your RAM (from DDR1 to DDR2)...at that point, you might as well upgrade the video card because AGP is becoming outdated and if you upgrade all that there's no point in bottlenecking yourself with AGP...

so here's about the best I can suggest...you check ASUS's website for BIOS updates and see if there was a BIOS update to fix compatability with the "D series" (pentium D/celeron D) of processors...if so, then you could update your BIOS and get a D series processor...

that wouldn't be a long-term upgrade, but it'd also be a cheap one...

Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

there's a few processors that newegg has for that socket...it's an outdated socket, so you won't be able to find a whole lot for it...sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

You COULD upgrade the cpu and motherboard if your RAM is compatible with this motherboard...You'd have to research that for yourself though...(apparently it's really touchy with DDR1 memory and only works with some...but it'd be worth looking into considering it's AGP, compatible with Core Duo...and DDR1)

Customer Reviews Of ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 LGA 775 VIA PT880 Pro/PT880 Ultra ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail



good luck with finding a solution