Motherboard and RAM question

[julius 85]

Hi, I bought a pre-built PC from Hewlett-Packard about a year ago. I didn't know a thing about computers back then. But I've been reading about computers a lot lately and I started wondering what exactly are my specs. So I installed PC Wizard to find out what my mobo is.In the Mainboard tab in the Hardware toolbar it says PEGATRON CORPORATION 2A94h and that it has Intel G43/G45 chipset and this is what it says about RAM:
Type : DDR3-SDRAM PC3-8500
Frequency : 532 MHz
DRAM/FSB Ratio : 8/5
Supported Channels : Dual
Mode : Symmetric
Activated Channels : Symmetric
ECC Diagnostic : Yes - Disabled
CAS Latency (tCL) : 7 clocks
RAS to CAS (tRCD) : 7 clocks
RAS Precharge (tRP) : 7 clocks
Cycle Time (tRAS) : 20 clocks
Row Refresh Cycle Time (tRF... 60 clocks
Command Rate : 2 T
I haven't been able to find out any information about the motherboard and I've heard that a bad quality motherboard can be a huge bottleneck so should I upgrade it? The capacity of RAM is 4GB but the frequency of the RAM is only 532MHz so could that be a bottleneck too?
My other specs are:
Gigabyte HD 5830
Intel core 2 quad q8400 @ 2.6GHz + stock cooler

 

[o1die]

Your ram is running at 1066 (533x2). Intel socket 775 doesn't take advantage of faster ddr3 as well as newer cpus, such as the 1155. Check your bios before buying faster ram, unless you want to upgrade anyway. Some boards will let you set the speed manually. Most brands of 1333 should work with your board; you may want to go ahead and get 1600 so you can transfer it to a faster setup later. I highly recommend only using 1.5v ram if the price is right. I use gskill and kingston.

 

[julius 85]

Are you sure that the effective frequency is 1066 MHz? Because the timings are 7-7-7-20. And I don't think that some no-name Elpida RAM would that that kind of timings.

 

[arson94]

Your RAM is running 7-7-7-20 at 1066Mhz. It has tighter timings for DDR3 because it's running at slower speeds, like DDR2 speeds. Look on newegg at other DDR3 1066Mhz (PC3 8500) and all the cheapest stuff has the same timings pretty much. Look at faster DDR3 1600Mhz (PC3 12800), they have looser timings. Your effective frequency is 1066Mhz as o1die said (533x2) because it's dual channel RAM running at 532Mhz like PC Wizard reported to you.

Your Q8400 supports 1333Mhz FSB, but your system came with 1066Mhz RAM and my only guess as to why is because of the board. I'm an AMD guy so I don't know much about Intel and am having to research as I type lol. But looking on Newegg, all LGA 775 boards seem to support DDR3 800/1066 by default and 1333 RAM by overclocking. So your computer coming with 1066Mhz RAM seems about right.

Also, the cheapest quad core LGA 775 CPU on Newegg that's an upgrade for you is $240. Faster RAM will be ~$80 give or take if you find a deal or promo code or whatever. However, I can't find info on your Pegatron board so I guess you could be right and it might actually be the bottleneck really. Not sure if you're playing games that max out your video card though. If you're not playing any games that max out your video card, then you may not be maxing out your PC period nor creating a bottleneck.

Thinking about everything though, to really get any benefit from any upgrades I think you'd need to upgrade your board, CPU, and RAM all together. After all that, possibly your video card too to keep up with games you'd might want to play as it would be the bottleneck then. Unless you only wanted to upgrade your CPU to a faster LGA 775 CPU and your options in quad cores would be very limited it seems. You could also 'upgrade' to a faster dual core LGA 775 CPU, but I'm not sure if it's worth the money to you.

If you're not experiencing any performance issues, I say you're better off and your money better spent to save it until you're ready for a full upgrade. Then, go build your bada$$ custom PC since, as you said earlier, you have a much better idea now about what to get than you did when you bought this HP.

 

[k1114]

You are at 1066 mhz as o1die said. Cl7 at that low speed is normal. I'm pretty sure hp locks everything so you won't be able to OC to get any faster. Your computer is decent overall, nothing that would really need to be changed, nothing creating a bottleneck. Prebuilts have an ok quality in general.

If you were looking to upgrade, as arson says, pretty much everything would need to be changed so a new computer would be a better option.

 

[arson94]

Actually, all that sh*t I just typed was said much more efficiently by k1114 just now in that you have a decently balanced build and probably no real bottlenecks. I was replying as I found stuff researching lol... Sorry for the long read!