No More Bottlenecking!

[Jd punk]

Okay well while in the building of my new PC im not just going to get it right away so I need something to last me until then, so heres the thing my prossecor (P4 2.4GHz) and my RAM (512MB) are bottlenecking my beautful video card (eVGA 7800GS Superclocked 256MB) and I cant stand it any longer. So im looking for some ram, now I have only 2 slots (right now i have 256MB x 2) maybe a 2GB (1 GB x 2) pack? Im not looking for anything fancy just something nice, and that can really boost my performance and stop the bottlenecking, heres my mother board specs / system specs

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y190/PvtJohnny/untitled-1.jpg

So can anyone please help me?

Thank you so much!

[rabb1t]

Um... that doesn't show what kind of ram you have. :p

Assuming it is a newer P4 then you are probably looking at DDR2-533, which I hate to say it won't be cheap. Certainly not worth spending the $200+ it would cost when you are looking at doing a new build. If you have DDR2 you may as well just go ahead and buy the Dominator ram (if that’s what you are going to do) and let it cycle down to the 533 speed. I don’t think it would damage the ram to run it at a slower speed, and you’d be able to just move it into the new system.

Assuming it is an older type, then you would have DDR-400. Due to everyone phasing out of DDR1 type, you aren't going to see a cheap price on that new. You'd have to likely find something on ebay. This G.Skill (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231047) should be decent, but again at $209 that's a huge chunk of cash you could be putting towards the upgrade. This G.Skill 1 gig kit (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231012) would be a decent boost for $115 (again, if you are on DDR-400), but still, I'd say just save everything for the upgrade. No point upgrading when you are going to be replacing the system.

[Jd punk]

Soo something like this? http://cgi.ebay.com/2-GB-DUAL-CHANNEL-KIT-DDR400-PC3200-2X1GB-G-SKILL-NEW_W0QQitemZ130049883222QQihZ003QQcategoryZ74942Q QrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

[Jd punk]

Just found this

http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=OptiPlex+GX260+Series

[rabb1t]

I'd say, assuming you are DDR-400 based, which you need to verify, that neither of those are good deals. If you look at the new links I have they are almost the exact same price as the ebayish links. I'd trust a new item from NewEgg with lifetime coverage over an ebayed item which likely won't have coverage any day. :p

I believe CPUZ would confirm the ram type.

[Jd punk]

Haha okay well here we go,

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/3858/untitled33sh7.png (http://imageshack.us)http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/6577/untitled44rv9.png (http://imageshack.us)

[rabb1t]

Good god that's slow. It is very likely a ram boost won't help you much as your various speeds are going to bottleneck you. It isn't just the amount, but the speed. And even if you cleared the ram amount it looks like you are running on ancient history there.

I'd seriously recommend just holding it for the upgrade, but if you must...

I suppose you could use some Corsair Value ram (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145439) 1 gig DDR-333 (which is faster than what you have) at $112

Don't expect it to help a lot though. It looks like since you have super slow ram you very likely have super slow everything else.

[tolliner]

Yeah, looks like you have a P4A cpu (meaning the first series of P4's released). Unfortunantly that hardware is old, and has not been supported for close to 2 years now. Your memory is SDRAM which is hard to find and because of low supply, the prices on it are higher.

Your best bet it to do a full upgrade. The bad part is you probably wont be able to keep your 7800GS because that's an agp only GPU and all new motherboards have pci-express slots for graphics cards.

As Rabbit said, don't waist any more money on your old computer as you wont get much, if anything, out of it. Your money is much better spent on brand new parts.

[Jd punk]

Yeah nvm, I can wait I guess.

[rabb1t]

Phew! Yeeeeaaa not wasted money.