How much performance gain P4 HT?

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bigbigbuddy

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Oct 13, 2013
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I'm currently visiting my family and I am finally taking action on upgrading their 10 year old computer. They won't buy a new one no matter how many times I tell them , and they always assume that the computer seems "slower" every time I get on it. I tried watching a video on YouTube in 360p and it would stagger so much. They're using a Celeron 2.40Ghz cpu, an old Radeon 9250 PCI card that I gave them after migrating from my Athlon XP 2500+ computer and 2 512mb DDR1 sticks I gave them after I had no use for them.

Now this isn't just a computer to increase the performance, I'm using it as an experiment to see what the P4 HT can actually handle in comparison. (Just need some opinions first)

Current hardware:

DDR1 CL2 PC-2700 512MB RAM x2
Radeon 9250 PCI 128MB
Celeron Socket 478 2.40GHz Single Core 400MHz FSB

New Hardware:

DDR1 CL2.5 PC-3200 1024MB RAM x2
Zotac GeForce GT610 PCI 512MB
Pentium 4 HT 3.06Ghz 478 533MHz FSB

Notes:
It only supports 2 DDR1 ram sticks, and the sticks I'm putting in are ones I used before on an AGP experimental build I own. I also checked and all the parts I'm getting are supported.

Don't post telling me to just buy a new build, I already have a laptop I'm thinking of handing down to them in the future that they can use, I only wish for an opinion on what I have stated, not the same remark I see online "It's cheaper to buy new parts. For 50$, I'm getting upgrades for their PC that will do exactly what they want without the constant "sluggishness".
 
Solution
nforce4max
There isn't much beyond having 2gb ram and a larger hard drive that you can do as you are already reaching for the very limits of the old P4 478 can do except for overclocking which is a bad idea in this case. You can do ide ssd but performance will be capped well below the mechanical's performance except for random 4k and read times.

Best thing you can do is rebuild around a cheap core 2 and ddr2 for the same cost. If they keep being stubborn then let them suffer for a while longer.
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hybird9012

hybird9012

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Jan 29, 2013
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Like the comment above. I'd recommend getting an SSD BUT you are probably working with IDE cables rather than SATA which means an SSD will not work for your. For a quick fix, get a new mechanical hard drive for $50. The issue with your computer getting slower is your hard drive starting to fail. Just so you are aware, mechanical hard drives are 100% prone to fail.. it sits anywhere from 1 year to 5 years.. after that it gets incredibly slow.. and to the point where your computer won't boot up any more.


I know you said not to recommend a new build but here is one for $271. (see below)
Newegg:
CPU: AMD A10-5800k
Memory: Corsair 4GB DDR3 1333mhz
Motherboard: MSI FM2-A75MA-E35
Case: Rosewill R363-M-BK w/ 400W PSU
CD/DVD Rom: Lite-ON DVD Burner

Total: $271.98
 
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bigbigbuddy

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Oct 13, 2013
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Well the hard drive was actually replaced before because the previous drive was slowing down as well my parents defrag on a monthly basis so it's not that. Though, this hard drive could be falling a part so I'll take hybird's advice.



Well HT on WIN XP systems were problems because tons of software never really benefited from multiprocessing. I remember running UT2004 on a HT computer only to experience lag but on my Athlon XP 3000+ with the same GPU, I had much better performance. Now while programs were running and performing activities in the background I had troubles but when I ran the HT I would get little to no performance loss with background processes in comparison.

Though if it wasn't the support of multicore processing that was hitting hard, please correct me.

I believe HT will help intensively on their system, since I'll be making the upgrade from Win XP to Win 7 and more programs to this day that they use support multicore processing. I also just found one of my 865PE Neo2-V boards, so I can throw in a Northwood P4 HT processor and take advantage of the full 400MHz FSB CPU and RAM I'm installing. As well I can install 3GB of RAM and enable Dual Channel to help with performance, install a SATA Drive (maybe even an SSD) and I install one of my old AGP cards!

Thanks for the advice guys!
 
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nforce4max

nforce4max

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Sep 9, 2009
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There isn't much beyond having 2gb ram and a larger hard drive that you can do as you are already reaching for the very limits of the old P4 478 can do except for overclocking which is a bad idea in this case. You can do ide ssd but performance will be capped well below the mechanical's performance except for random 4k and read times.

Best thing you can do is rebuild around a cheap core 2 and ddr2 for the same cost. If they keep being stubborn then let them suffer for a while longer.
 
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