I want to upgrade my socket 939 computer...

[Aztech]

I'm not really a gamer or anything. I have a computer with a socket 939 Sempron 3200 or so, with 1 Gig RAM. It's feeling sluggish lately. What's the fastest processor I can put in there? I think if I upgrade the CPU and go to 2 Gigs of RAM, I can get another year or two out of this computer. It does use the more expensive DDR rather than the DDR2. Worth upgrading? What upgrades?

Thank yall

 

[themisfit610]

No.

It's not worth putting a dime into a socket 939 system, unless you get a really good deal on some used components. DDR1 is expensive, and so are socket 939 processors.

Get a P35 board for ~$75, an E2180 for $70, and 2GB of RAM for $40. That's less than $200 for a brand new system core, that will burn your old one into dust - espeically if you want to overclock the E2180 a tad. It would be a shame not to!!

Plus, it's got upgrade potential. That board will take up to 8GB of RAM and a quad-core processor - should you feel so obliged

~MiSfit

 

[Blain]

The DDR upgrade from 1GB to 2GB may not be a good performance return on your cash.
But a CPU upgrade may be well worth the $$. As long as you don't get crazy.
An AMD 64 4000+ San Diego at $46 shipped would be a heck of an upgrade for you. :thumbsup::laugh:

BTW, You may want to reinstall your OS or at give the registry a good cleaning.
Beyond that, make sure you've got a good spyware app running.

 

[TC91]

if you could nab an X2 for ~60-70 or under that would be a nice deal, and would give you a very notable perf boost.

 

[DSF]

What's feeling sluggish? Have you installed new applications that need more horsepower, or is it just seeming to slow down on the same old tasks? If it's the latter, Blain's suggestion to do a little deep cleaning might be just as effective as new hardware.

 

[Twsmit]

If you can find a cheap X2 dual core plus another gig of ram an upgrade for $50-100 is probably worthwhile. Anymore money than that go with what the misfit said and build a cheap C2D or Prentium Dual core system

 

[themisfit610]

Cmon guys... a 4000+ San Diego? that's pathetic compared to today's CPUs.

I mean - it's all up to the OP, but its like this:

Spend money now for small gain in performance. End of the line for upgrades

Spend slightly more money now for much much more performance, and massive upgrade potential.

~MiSfit

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: themisfit610
Cmon guys... a 4000+ San Diego? that's pathetic compared to today's CPUs.

I actually am still using a a san diego 4000+, it does Okay(depending on what your doing) and I will be upgrading it soon as well just to squeeze a few more years out of it until SSD's become more mainstream. Then I'll prolly just turn this thing into a HTPC.

Anyways OP, if you can snag a s939 processor for less than $100 I'd jump on it, I personally wouldn't purchase the fastest processor for the money as it's not going to be worth it at the price point.

I'd probably just pickup an 4400+ for a CPU another 1GB or memory as well; total upgrade should be less than $200. If it happens to be more, I'd scrap the idea and just start from scratch..

---
Anyway, I personally am buying my friends old gaming machine off him for $500 and salvage quite a bit of it to use in my machine; sure the price seems expensive at first but considering I'm gonna get a 74GB WD raptor, 500GB caviar drive, fatality x-fi sound card, 4400+, and a few other things; it's worth it to me.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: themisfit610
Cmon guys... a 4000+ San Diego? that's pathetic compared to today's CPUs.

I mean - it's all up to the OP, but its like this:

Spend money now for small gain in performance. End of the line for upgrades

Spend slightly more money now for much much more performance, and massive upgrade potential.

~MiSfit

Did you read what the OP said or is your brain locked into C2D-Mode?
He wants to try and keep his old 939 alive and kicking for "another year or two".
Obviously from the context of his post, "cost" is a concern. The OP also said that "I'm not really a gamer or anything".

He wants an "upgrade" not total new build.
1. It's assumed he's running Windows XP. As long as his apps aren't demanding, 1GB is fine for him. Adding another GB of DDR isn't justified (assuming he's running normal apps).

2. A 2.4GHz San Diego with 1MB L2 would give him a very nice performance bump up from his current 1.8GHz Sempron with only 256KB L2.

 

[themisfit610]

Originally posted by: Blain

Originally posted by: themisfit610
Cmon guys... a 4000+ San Diego? that's pathetic compared to today's CPUs.

I mean - it's all up to the OP, but its like this:

Spend money now for small gain in performance. End of the line for upgrades

Spend slightly more money now for much much more performance, and massive upgrade potential.

~MiSfit

Did you read what the OP said or is your brain locked into C2D-Mode?
He wants to try and keep his old 939 alive and kicking for "another year or two".
Obviously from the context of his post, "cost" is a concern. The OP also said that "I'm not really a gamer or anything".

He wants an "upgrade" not total new build.
1. It's assumed he's running Windows XP. As long as his apps aren't demanding, 1GB is fine for him. Adding another GB of DDR isn't justified (assuming he's running normal apps).

2. A 2.4GHz San Diego with 1MB L2 would give him a very nice performance bump up from his current 1.8GHz Sempron with only 256KB L2.

Okay okay...

Look.

My brain is "locked into C2D-mode" because it offers the most bang for your buck.

A 2.4 GHz San Diego will definitely be a nice bump up from a 1.8 GHz Sempron. It was a king-of-the-hill class processor - albeit 3 years ago.

Now, obviously the E2180 is going to be much faster. Extremely so in multithreaded stuff. Consider that it's only $70.

Obviously an E2180 isn't a drop-in upgrade for the OP. He's got to get a new board + RAM too. DDR2 is sinfully cheap, and so are P35 motherboards. That adds less than $100 to the equation.

From my perspective, it's worth investing an extra $100-150 to get the added performance from a 2180 and the upgrade path.

BUT - I'm not the OP.

I just don't like the idea up upgrading such a dated platform, since it's money down the drain in the long run.

OP - what applications do you run? If any of them are multithreaded, I'd push for you to pony up to the C2D world - and if you cant afford it, to save up if you can.

If not, a 4000+ is still pretty durn fast.

~MiSfit

 

[robmurphy]

IF you get get the DDR cheap then a memory upgrade is fine, just do not pay much for it. If you only have 2 DDR slots then I would leave the upgrade because as I remember 1 Gig DDR sticks were expensive.

I would be careful of upgrading the CPU. I blew a s939 motherboard by fitting a X2 4600 cpu. It booted fine, re-installed the OS. Left Prime95 on both cores for a few hours and I had one dead system. The CPU still worked. The memory still worked so I assumed the motherboard had blown. The higer end X2 CPUs are 110W TDP and I do not think some motherboards can handle them. A CPU with a TDP of 89W should be OK, you may need a new HSF for it.

Before doing the upgrade it would be worth you doing some basic house keeping first.

I have noticed over time the number of programs, software ect that run on startup/login increases. Use task manager to check how much memory is in use without starting any programs. If its over 300 Meg in use I would use windows defender's software explorer to check what is being loaded at startup/login. Doing this on some machines I have reduced the amount of memory in use by 50 to 150 Meg.

I would also check just how fragged your disk is. If it is baddly fragged run the de-freg utility a few times, often, for me, once does not do the job. This is often best left running over night.

Just doing these 2 alone can make a big difference to how responsive the machine is.

You may also want to check the performance settings om you machine. The performance settings are under the advanced tab in system properties.

Rob

 

[Aztech]

I don't have the time to respond to each post, so thanks to everyone who replied. I'll try doing some cleanup and software optimization and then shop for cheap bang for the buck upgrades and make a decision based on my findings.

If I decide to upgrade the chip, do I need to buy a retail box? Will I be able to use the same heatsink/fan that's on there? What's your advice on this?

My mobo has 4 DIMMs, and they're all full right now (4 x 256). I'd have to replace DIMMs.

 

[LightningRider]

Just upgrade.... I wouldn't put money into a machine that old.

 

[jdkick]

Definitely do some housekeeping - computers don't get sluggish without a reason.

What exactly do you use your PC for? Depending on that, dropping in something like a 4000+ for < $50 is completely reasonable IMO. I'd give a try using your existing cooler as well. As for memory, unless you can identify that 1GB is limiting you then i'd leave the 4x256MB alone.