Forums » Off-Topic
Computer upgrade ?
Well its time to upgrade this thing one last time before I build a new box. The question is should I go from a 3000+ fsb 333 to a 3200+ 400 fsb with 1 gig of 400 ram. On the other hand should I just keep the 3000+ 333 fsb and put 3 gigs in it. Both upgrade ideas cost me about the same. Any one know what they would do,besides building a new box.
current specs
3000+ fsb 333
1gig 333
36gig raptor 10,000rpm
6800gt 256mb 8xagp
current specs
3000+ fsb 333
1gig 333
36gig raptor 10,000rpm
6800gt 256mb 8xagp
Um. I'd say save the money and get that much better of a new box when you get a new one, because neither of those upgrades will do much. Unless you do serious video editing or server stuff, 3GB of RAM is not going to increase your performance over 1GB (at least, I've never filled up 1GB of RAM, even with World Wind, Google Earth, and Vendetta running). As for the 3200+ vs 3000+, no significant difference in performance. I don't think you should waste that kind of money over something like 0.7% performance.
> 3GB of RAM is not going to increase your performance over 1GB (at least, I've never
> filled up 1GB of RAM, even with World Wind, Google Earth, and Vendetta running).
That's because Windows will swap memory off to disk before it's really necessary. I have 2GiB of RAM in my Linux box here, and as of right now I'm using all of it except 16MiB. And that's pretty typical. Adding more memory should always have a positive effect on performance, because it means you don't have to swap inactive pages to disk as often, and you can cache more data off the disk in RAM. However, it does give diminishing returns, when you compare adding 1GiB to adding 2GiB, the 1GiB gives much more than 1/2 the performance gain of the 2GiB. Personally, if I were looking at either 1GiB DDR400 RAM, or 3GiB DDR333 RAM, I'd take the 3GiB. But the cost would be something I'd consider, would I really like the performance increase enough to be worth it?
I wouldn't upgrade my CPU just for that little of a clock frequency increase. Is the CPU you have now 32 or 64 bit? Right now, that's the big thing that's coming out, from now on I don't see myself buying any more 32 bit x86 CPUs. But even if you are considering upgrading a 32-bit 3000+ to a 64-bit 3200+, I'd still probably wait until the prices drop, and I could afford say a 64-bit 4000+.
> filled up 1GB of RAM, even with World Wind, Google Earth, and Vendetta running).
That's because Windows will swap memory off to disk before it's really necessary. I have 2GiB of RAM in my Linux box here, and as of right now I'm using all of it except 16MiB. And that's pretty typical. Adding more memory should always have a positive effect on performance, because it means you don't have to swap inactive pages to disk as often, and you can cache more data off the disk in RAM. However, it does give diminishing returns, when you compare adding 1GiB to adding 2GiB, the 1GiB gives much more than 1/2 the performance gain of the 2GiB. Personally, if I were looking at either 1GiB DDR400 RAM, or 3GiB DDR333 RAM, I'd take the 3GiB. But the cost would be something I'd consider, would I really like the performance increase enough to be worth it?
I wouldn't upgrade my CPU just for that little of a clock frequency increase. Is the CPU you have now 32 or 64 bit? Right now, that's the big thing that's coming out, from now on I don't see myself buying any more 32 bit x86 CPUs. But even if you are considering upgrading a 32-bit 3000+ to a 64-bit 3200+, I'd still probably wait until the prices drop, and I could afford say a 64-bit 4000+.
Neither. Your rig is fine for gaming. If you really want to spend the money, spend it on quieting down the rig... NV Silencer 5 on the 6800 GT, nice CPU cooler, 120 mm case fans, drop the Raptor, etc. Check http://www.silentpcreview.com for suggestions.
I envy you people. My main Linux box has 320MB of RAM, and that's a two-month old upgrade from 64MB. Though my memory usage is currently sitting pretty at 80MB... :)
-:sigma.SB
-:sigma.SB
Heh. What on earth do you do in Linux that eats up that much RAM? With F@H, mysql, apache2, emerge, X, vnc, and gnome running, my system is only using 402MB RAM (actually, 236MB of RAM and 166MB of swap). Anyhow, unless you do really intensive stuff, I stand by my original post.
Most of it is data cached off the disk, not actually allocated to programs. But caching data in RAM does improve performance, although it does give diminishing returns. Adding more RAM should always improve performance, although often the performance gain is not sufficient to warrant the cost.