Looking to upgrade

[momsgonelooney]

I'm looking to upgrade my system but, not real sure wat to put in to it so I'm gonna post a few specs and any help would be appreciated. I use my comp mostly for gaming but, the kids use it for school so it has to be able to handle both loads.



Field Value
Computer
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
OS Service Pack Service Pack 3
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)


Motherboard
CPU Type AMD Athlon 64, 2300 MHz (11 x 209)
Motherboard Name Gigabyte GA-K8NS Pro (5 PCI, 1 AGP, 3 DDR DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN, IEEE-1394)
Motherboard Chipset nVIDIA nForce3 250, AMD Hammer
System Memory 512 MB (PC3200 DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award Modular (05/04/05)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM1)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM2)
Communication Port Printer Port (LPT1)

Display
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 (256 MB)
3D Accelerator nVIDIA GeForce FX 5500
Monitor Plug and Play Monitor [NoDB]

Multimedia
Audio Adapter nVIDIA MCP2-S - Audio Codec Interface

Storage
IDE Controller NVIDIA nForce3 250 Parallel ATA Controller
IDE Controller NVIDIA nForce3 250 Serial ATA Controller
SCSI/RAID Controller Silicon Image SiI 3512 SATALink Controller
Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive
Disk Drive ST3160021A (160 GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/100)
Optical Drive Optiarc DVD RW AD-7190A
SMART Hard Disks Status OK

Partitions
C: (NTFS) 152617 MB (125597 MB free)

Input
Keyboard Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse PS/2 Compatible Mouse

Network
Network Adapter Marvell Yukon 88E8001/8003/8010 PCI Gigabit Ethernet Controller (192.168.1.47)
Modem Motorola SM56 Speakerphone Modem

Peripherals
Printer Microsoft XPS Document Writer
Printer Send To OneNote 2007
USB1 Controller nVIDIA MCP2-S - OHCI USB 1.1 Controller
USB1 Controller nVIDIA MCP2-S - OHCI USB 1.1 Controller
USB2 Controller nVIDIA MCP2-S - EHCI USB 2.0 Controller

 

[pingpongmury]

Your current processor is just fine for both gaming and running programs so i would recommend 1st of all an update in your RAM, this will help both sides of your situation, the more memory the better, (keep in mind the maximum amount of RAM XP Home Edition supports is around 3.5GB) and also the timings (mine are 3-3-3-8) the lower the the numbers the higher the performance. I hope this was of some help to you.

BTW... when i bought my RAM i got 4GB of pqi TURBO for around $80 delivered from Newegg.com, the prices may have gone down I'm not sure

 

[momsgonelooney]

this was a lot of help ty. Just a questuon. I don't understand wat u mean by timing. If you could explain I would appreciate it.

 

[pingpongmury]

memory timings are as follows, 3-3-3-8, the first number is the CAS Timing, CAS stands for Column Address Strobe or Column Address Select, and It controls the amount of time (in cycles) between sending a reading command and the time to act on it. So the lower the number... the better

the second number represents the tRCD to CAS Delay, (Row Address Select to Column Address Select) this is the amount of time (in cycles) for issuing an active command and the read/write commands. Again the lower the number... the better

the third number in the sequence is the tRP timing, or Row Pre-charge Time, This is the minimum time between active commands and the read/writes of the next bank on the memory module. Once more the lower the number...... the better

the last number is the tRAS timing, or the Min RAS Active Time. this is the amount of time between a row being activated and then deactivated ( this ammount of time (in cycles) is reached by adding up the first 3 numbers in the timing [+/- 1 cycle] ) . A row cannot be deactivated until tRAS has completed. The lower this is, the faster the performance, but if it is set too low, it can cause data corruption by deactivating the row too soon. (Think of it as a train filling with people, and the door closes before some of them could get on).

 

[momsgonelooney]

ok so how do i change all that?

 

[pingpongmury]

you'll have to buy more RAM

and while looking for RAM make sure you get memory that will fit in your mobo