What is the bottleneck in my PC?

[leglez]

Ok I have been in the process of upgrading my PC for the past 6 months. Its fast enough for me but I got Need for Speed Carbon and this is the first game I have ever played besides Diablo II, and AoE 2. When I put it on max settings the game lags. Its not horrible but it is still pretty bad. So I am looking to find what the bottleneck is on my system.

Specs:

Socket 939 Sempron 3200+ 2.0GHz
1.25GBs of RAM
X800XL Video Card
Hanns-G JW199D 19" Widescreen LCD


If you want any other specs let me know. I thought that these where the only ones that would be needed

 

[Ayah]

Configuration of the memory?
I'd say upgrade CPU to a X2 3800+, 2GB of memory and a 7900 something or another.

 

[leglez]

The RAM is PC3200

 

[CurseTheSky]

AGP or PCI-E motherboard?

Your best option would be to upgrade the processor. As far as I know, the Semprons are the AMD Celeron equivilent... and I wouldn't trust a Celeron as far as I could throw it. The stuff you have out there is starting to get pretty dated, so how much are you looking to spend on upgrades?

My suggestion is to upgrade to a cheap Core 2 Duo system. You could buy the low-end components (which will make WORLDS of difference over your current computer), and a mid-range PCI-E card for about $500-600 total. The great part is, even low-end Core 2 Duo components (processor, motherboard, decent DDR2 667) will overclock well, and are still regarded as a good computer.

Look into the following, and see if it's possible for you:
Core 2 Duo, E6300
ASUS P5B, P965 Express
Crucial, Corsair, OCZ (or other decent company) DDR2 667 (1GB minimum, 2GB if you can afford it)
Geforce 7600GT, Geforce 7900GS, or Radeon X1950 Pro

If you're not into overclocking, you might want to jump up to the E6400, and downgrade to less expensive memory. If you can't afford any of that by a long shot, then look into an X2 3800+ (socket 939).

 

[acole1]

try taking out the .25 of ram and see if anything changes...

GPU next(?)
CPU last

 

[thegimp03]

I'd consider upgrading your GPU first to a 7900 series card. That processor will bottleneck the card so follow up with that right after...

 

[leglez]

It is a PCI-E motherboard. Wouldn't removing ram make it run slower? I thought the more ram you had the better.

 

[imported_stev]

Originally posted by: CurseTheSky
and I wouldn't trust a Celeron as far as I could throw it.

It's small, you could probably throw it pretty far

 

[CurseTheSky]

Originally posted by: leglez
It is a PCI-E motherboard. Wouldn't removing ram make it run slower? I thought the more ram you had the better.

If possible, you should try running your memory in a specific configuration. Consider the four memory slots on your motherboard - from closest to the processor to furthest away, let's call them A1, A2, B1, and B2. First, you should try to run all equal speed memory, as they will all run at the speed of the slowest stick anyway. If you have two DDR400 sticks, one DDR333, and one DDR266, consider removing the slower two, to allow your system to run at DDR400 speeds. If they're all the same speed, you should pair up the DIMMs as equally as possible. If you have two 512MB sticks of DDR400, put them in slots A1 and B1 (the slots are usually colored the same for a reason). If you have two more sticks, say 128MB DDR400, place them in slots A2 and B2. If you have all unequal memory sizes, you'd probably be best off just placing the biggest two equal sticks in A1 and B1. If you have only one big DIMM and a few smaller, try running with just that sick in A1, and consider buying a matching stick later on. Less memory WILL make your computer run slower, if you're using up all of your available memory; however, running memory at slower speeds than your motherboard is rated for will also make your computer run slower.

Originally posted by: stev

Originally posted by: CurseTheSky
and I wouldn't trust a Celeron as far as I could throw it.

It's small, you could probably throw it pretty far

What if I have no arms?! ...Ignore the fact that I'm typing right now.