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What to upgrade sooner rather than later?

C

Caly

Member
A few years ago you guys helped me put together a PC for my BF that was great for its time. This year with a lot of help I put together a gaming PC for me & I think my BF wants to steal it. ^^;
He's trying to play Civ 4 on his PC and it is slow and choppy as hell.

So I think getting him some RAM would help speed him up right away without changing everything.
What RAM would you suggest? He wants to buy this in RL at a store like J & R or Best Buy etc. in NYC tomorrow so he can enjoy his game this weekend and not have to wait for the mail.

Would switching to Windows Pro help too? What else would you upgrade first?

His PC-
110426 - Asus NForce2 A7N8X Deluxe
120734 - AMD ATHLON XP2500+333MHz,Retai
BFG 6800 GT OC
Dell 19in Ultrashop LCD
130208 - AMD CERT.up to 3000 Fan & Heat
140879 - CORSAIR VS512MB400 3200 DDR 40
150703 - SAMSUNG SP0802N 80GB 7200 RPM
210112 - WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION
100034 - MONARCH TOWER 1150 (BLACK) 300

Thanks! :heart:
 
Hmm...

RAM is always a plus so doubling it to a gig would improve your performence as would overclocking your CPU. I also suggest tweaking your computer to make it faster as opposed to using Pro. Go through MSCONFIG to turn off needless tasks, you can find what tasks are needed and which ones arent using Google search. Cutting down on your processes help a lot, as would checking for spyware and such and get rid of them. I know that might seem like an easy solution but your specs are decent enough that Civ4 shouldn't run like that, at least in my opinion.

Just start with the RAM and OS tweaks and see how far that gets you. Also, if you have sufficient cooling which it appears you do, overclock your CPU, RAM and GPU as much as you can.
 
Just a suggestion but why not get a new computer? You can confiruge a AMD A643000+ w/ a gig of ram, 256mb GF6600GT and a 150GB Hard Disk installed w/ WinXPPROSP2 for about 600 or less if you build it yourself, that includes optical drives and case as well. Use your current monitor and speakers for it and it will be world better than what you have now, plus with an awesome cooling system you could overclock the piss out of it and make it a real champ.

Just a thought.
 
Originally posted by: thelush84
Just a suggestion but why not get a new computer? You can confiruge a AMD A643000+ w/ a gig of ram, 256mb GF6600GT and a 150GB Hard Disk installed w/ WinXPPROSP2 for about 600 or less if you build it yourself, that includes optical drives and case as well. Use your current monitor and speakers for it and it will be world better than what you have now, plus with an awesome cooling system you could overclock the piss out of it and make it a real champ.

Just a thought.
Click to expand...

Why would they do that considering it has a "BFG 6800 GT OC" already?
 
Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Originally posted by: thelush84
Just a suggestion but why not get a new computer? You can confiruge a AMD A643000+ w/ a gig of ram, 256mb GF6600GT and a 150GB Hard Disk installed w/ WinXPPROSP2 for about 600 or less if you build it yourself, that includes optical drives and case as well. Use your current monitor and speakers for it and it will be world better than what you have now, plus with an awesome cooling system you could overclock the piss out of it and make it a real champ.

Just a thought.
Click to expand...

Why would they do that considering it has a "BFG 6800 GT OC" already?
Click to expand...


I overlooked that, good point. That saves $100-$200 off the price right there. Now it's pretty obvious a new PC should be built.
 
I'll have to look into which processes can be safely turned off. It's my Bf's PC, I just got myself a new one and we can't afford yet another PC.
We both know zilch about overclocking.
He has Macaffee and stuff set up and just re-installed windows so I don't think he has Spyware atm.
So what Best Buy RAM would you recomend for this system? Or does it not really matter?
 
Originally posted by: thelush84
Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Originally posted by: thelush84
Just a suggestion but why not get a new computer? You can confiruge a AMD A643000+ w/ a gig of ram, 256mb GF6600GT and a 150GB Hard Disk installed w/ WinXPPROSP2 for about 600 or less if you build it yourself, that includes optical drives and case as well. Use your current monitor and speakers for it and it will be world better than what you have now, plus with an awesome cooling system you could overclock the piss out of it and make it a real champ.

Just a thought.
Click to expand...

Why would they do that considering it has a "BFG 6800 GT OC" already?
Click to expand...


I overlooked that, good point. That saves $100-$200 off the price right there. Now it's pretty obvious a new PC should be built.
Click to expand...

why a whole new pc?
just upgrade to at least 1gb of ram and maybe get a new cpu, or maybe a new mob and cpu if you want to go amd 64. everything else seems fine.
 
Just get more RAM. No idea why he thinks Civ 4 is choppy - I have a more or less identical system (with an FX5700) that plays it fine.

-Erwos
 
I tried it- his Civ 4 takes forever to load up and moving around is torture. My Civ 4 is speedy.
Does it matter what kind of RAM? We're looking at what Best Buy has. Seems to be Corsair, PNY, Kingston, Viking...
 
I tried it- his Civ 4 takes forever to load up and moving around is torture
Click to expand...

That sounds like a ram issue. Although I haven't benched (or played) this particular game, FarCry, PainKiller etc showed considerable improvement in load times and in-game navigation by upping the ram to 1gig (was 512MB).

This on my rig below. Pretty similar to what he's got.

A reformat & reinstall might help too if it's been a long time.

Fern
 
Nice. How is Civ4? I played over 300 hours on civ3. it was soo adicting 🙂. I have some extra cash on hand so I might get Civ4 if there is a sale or something on it 🙂
 
Hmm... I'm assuming both sticks of ram are at the same settings? His computer may be old, but not that old. 1g of ram should do you fine. Maybe he has bloatware installed. Whatever background options that he doesnt need should be turned off using msconfig
 
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