| Forum Home | ||||
| Press F1 | ||||
| Thread ID: 80056 | 2007-06-10 00:45:00 | Upgrade advise please? | minster (9180) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 557743 | 2007-06-10 00:45:00 | Hi! Can anyone say whether or not it would be worth it to make some upgrades to my existing computer which is... *Intel P4 3.0G Socket478 800MHz FSB L2 1M Hyper-Threading *Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-8S661FXM-RZ SIS 661FX *Memory: 1GB DDR400 Memory *Graphics: Onboard Windows XP Home sp2. My main use is in creating "Web Graphics"-"Animations" and am finding delays with some of the pages loading when working with "Heavier" graphics. Would increasing the ram to 2GB and fitting a separate graphics card help me out here? As finances are limited, can anyone give advise on the best choices for this system. What limits of graphics card will my system be compatible with and would there be a need to increase the power supply size(I have 300 watt at the moment) Any advise would be appreciated! Thank you:) |
minster (9180) | ||
| 557744 | 2007-06-10 00:53:00 | A C2D chip, and more RAM would be a good place to start. Possibly upgrade your Mobo as well although some of the other members could make a better suggestion as to which mobo than I could. 2GB of RAM would be good. |
winmacguy (3367) | ||
| 557745 | 2007-06-10 01:01:00 | Possibly upgrade your Mobo as well although some of the other members could make a better suggestion as to which mobo than I could.2GB of RAM would be good. He may have trouble with that... can't go much better than what he's got at the moment and even if he did you would probably only be able to squeeze a few more MHz out of a new CPU. Best bet would be to upgrade to a dedicated graphics card... most likely it is the on-board graphics which is creating the bottleneck. Do that 1st and see if your RAM needs upgrading. I honestly don't think you would need more RAM unless the graphics you're doing are high definition or require excessive amounts of memory to render. Cheers |
chiefnz (545) | ||
| 557746 | 2007-06-10 01:11:00 | As suggested, Your best bet will be a graphics card, nothing excessive though as you didn't mention gaming The other issue which is just as important if not more so is to ensure your running an efficient machine, free up resources by killing off unneeded background programs, scanning for and removing any spyware/viruses, Deleting all the cached and temporary files, choosing an anti-virus app that doesn't hog resources. |
Metla (12) | ||
| 557747 | 2007-06-10 01:21:00 | Thanks!:) When using one of my favourite graphics programs (Photo Impact 12 ... Gif animator) my cpu usage meter sits on 100% and will crash at times. Xara Extreme Pro is the best at 2-20% I would hate to see what would happen if I used my Photo Shop! Any suggestions on a graphics card and is 256 bit a better choice than 128 bit? |
minster (9180) | ||
| 557748 | 2007-06-10 01:25:00 | I would hate to see what would happen if I used my Photo Shop! Any suggestions on a graphics card and is 256 bit a better choice than 128 bit? Photoshop shouldn't crash your machine. 256 Mb is better than 128Mb |
winmacguy (3367) | ||
| 557749 | 2007-06-10 01:28:00 | Thanks!:) When using one of my favourite graphics programs (Photo Impact 12 ... Gif animator) my cpu usage meter sits on 100% and will crash at times. Xara Extreme Pro is the best at 2-20% I would hate to see what would happen if I used my Photo Shop! Any suggestions on a graphics card and is 256 bit a better choice than 128 bit? 128/256 bit won't make any difference unless your gaming, Though I would suggest that fitting a video card won't fix the issue of your cpu maxing out and your system crashing, All your current hardware should be able to do the required work without raising a sweat. So look at the software enviorment. |
Metla (12) | ||
| 557750 | 2007-06-10 01:43:00 | [QUOTE=winmacguy;559204]Photoshop shouldn't crash your machine . /QUOTE] :D You are probably right there but I haven't opened my PhotoShop since finding Xara Extreme a year ago:thumbs: Okay! Seems that more ram and a good graphics card would be beneficial so all I need to find out is "Which card?" . . . a 9600 pro perhaps? Yes I do keep my pc as clean as possible re; temp files etc and multiple programs open:thumbs: Thanks for a great forum fella's All replies are appreciated:D |
minster (9180) | ||
| 557751 | 2007-06-10 04:15:00 | Okay! Seems that more ram and a good graphics card would be beneficial so all I need to find out is "Which card?" . . . a 9600 pro perhaps? :yuck: :yuck: :yuck: :yuck: :yuck: Seriously you can do a lot better than a 9600 Pro . . . have a look HERE ( . pricespy . co . nz/cat_16 . html" target="_blank">www . pricespy . co . nz) The 9600 is going for about $129 . 00, for the same price you can get a much more decent card . . . . what's your price range? I assume you're using AGP still . If you're gonna buy a graphics card don't scrape the bottom of the barrel, get the best card you can with the money you have . I doubt whether you will need to get RAM and a graphics card . As I suggested previously get one (preferably the graphics card) not both and you will most likely NOT need to increase your RAM as well . Of course over time you may find that you need to bump the RAM up but initially it shouldn't be an issue . Cheers |
chiefnz (545) | ||
| 557752 | 2007-06-10 04:19:00 | [QUOTE=winmacguy;559204] You are probably right there but I haven't opened my PhotoShop since finding Xara Extreme a year ago:thumbs: That looks like an interesting package . I take it you use it a fair amount? |
winmacguy (3367) | ||
| 1 2 | |||||