Monitor the loads on computer

Is there a program out there that will monitor the loads on video card, RAM, hard drive, CPU, etc? I just want to know the limiting factor in the performance of my computer so I can upgrade the right component. Thanks.

Try posting your system specs in the 'Hardware\ General Homebuilt' forum and ask for feedback.

The guys there are usually very helpful ....

There are plenty of ways to monitor utilization of your computer's resources. Perfmon comes with Windows and if you spend about thirty minutes fishing around, you'll see the remarkable things you can accomplish with it.

The problem however, is that knowing the utilization of these components is not likely to be directly useful in determining what component(s) need to be upgraded. There are some things that are relatively obvious like memory over-commitment but the rest requires much interpretation.

And consider this. There will always be one or more limiting factors. Get rid of one, and another will appear. It's all relative. And there are things that Performance Monitor cannot and will not tell you, like if your PCI bus is overloaded.

-Brad