CPU Upgrade

[Wil Garrett]

CPU Upgrade

I recently won a computer in a raffle at my work...it's a HP Pavilion a302x...2.5 Ghz celeron.....40 gig HD...48x cdrw. Does anyone know what is the fastest processor this system will take...and would upgrading the processor make that much of a difference!
Thanks in Advance!

 

[Turbo-Athlon5]

probably a pentium 4 of about 2.5 or 2.8ghz. since most mobos even brand name comps like hp, have celeron/pentium 4 works in the same cpu slot.

call them and they should tell u. most likely a pentium 4, i think it would only make a difference in boot up time, games, and other graphically intenese, and cpu intense programs.

the pentium 4 would be better for those reasons, mainly games tho, but celeron can be good enough too,

if your doing other things besides video editting/games that celeron will be pretty good for u how it is.

i know most ppl will tell u that a pentium 4 would be way better, it would be quite faster.

 

[Wil Garrett]

Thanks for the info Turbo...i'm giving the PC to my son who likes to play online games (counterstrike) so i think i might go to the P4 2.8...but would'nt i have to increase the cooling also for the P4...and what would you reccomend.
Thanks!

 

[RyanOldw83]

counterstrike will run great on the cpu you have in it.

 

[tech4hire]

agreed , you do not need to upgrad the CPU, you may want to check and see what video card is in it. A video card may be a better upgrade for counterstrike than a CPU upgrade.

 

[Wil Garrett]

There is not alot i can do about the Video.....it's integrated(intel extreme graphics)....i bought him a Digital Camera for X-mas...so he likes to manipulate his Photos...so for now i guess the 64 mb(shared) video will have to do... no AGP slot...i have 768 mb's of ram installed...so thats not too bad...but i realize i'm limited on what i can upgrade.
Thanks!

 

[tech4hire]

Even though it has integrated video it probably still has an AGP slot and the integrated video can be disabled.

 

[Wil Garrett]

No AGP slot tech.....just 3 pci slots...which i have 1 open since i installed a SB sound card for him last week....i'm not really sure how good this "Intel Extreme Graphics" is...but for now it will have to do...it says 64 mb.

 

[Turbo-Athlon5]

Intel Extreme graphics are very very very poor performers, a real videocard will greatly increase the speed of games. that videocard is going to struggle with games that came out last year. probably.

You get a heatsink and fan when u buy a pentium 4, its an easy install lots of info on the web too.

if i was in your position, i would buy a decent motherboard for about 120CDN from ASUS or a cheap one for like 90CDN. and get a radeon 9200, or 9600 video card. id leave the celeron, because its probably strong enough anyway, but if your son is playing counter strike - that doesnt need much video power

i had an old Compaq - 466mhz celeron,192mb ram, an 8mb onboard i810 video, and i was playing counter strike smoothly with that.

so the computer you have there is overkill for that game


congrats on winning it,

upgrades needed probably :
videocard

upgrades needed in the future:
pentium 4.

 

[Turbo-Athlon5]

oh ya the only reason id upgrade the motherboard is to get agp slot, and youd get other great features in a new mobo, as well as overclocking. you can overclock marginally with stock cooling, but thats not an option with that mobo, its HP.

anyway u can do it for reletively cheap, an asus mobo for about 100cdn and a radeon 9200 for 100cdn(i got one, i like it, it overclocks too).

total approx 200cdn which is about 150american.


or u can always buy a special PCI version of the videocard, which would cost more and be slower.