Upgrading

[kierenbarwise]

Hi my pc is old and is quite slow for running up to date video games or some medium dated ones, and for christmas i was thinking to update either my cpu or my graphics card, i was wondering which would make my computer faster, these are the ones i have at the moment.

Cpu : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+ (2 CPUs), ~2.2GHz

Graphics Card : NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS

Which would make the biggest improvement to my computer, and what would help even further, if i do find out which would, which one would actully work into my computer, i dont want to just go and buy one if it sucks or it wont work on my computer, known my luck thats what will happen so i thought i would come here and ask for help, thanks in advance

 

[AdrianPerry]

In order to suggest a CPU upgrade we need to know what motherboard you have.

Updating the Graphics card will generally see you get the most performance gains for gaming. This being said, with only a dual core CPU, your likely to get "bottle-necked" performance in which your graphics card cant use all its power because its being restricted by the CPU.

What sort of "budget" do you have to spend?

In answer to the question " Which would make my computer faster " .....the CPU is responsible for that. So any kid of CPU upgrade will see your computer running faster. Although be aware RAM can be a limiting factor. If you have 4GB or more though, this won't be an issue.

 

[simon12]

For gaming I would upgrade the GPU 1st but you really need both.

 

[kierenbarwise]

Ermm Ram i have 3072MB but am unsure about what motherboard i have :s is there a way to find out ? erm hold i think its a biostar GF8200C M2+ yeah im pretty sure its that

 

[AdrianPerry]

Ermm Ram i have 3072MB but am unsure about what motherboard i have :s is there a way to find out ? erm hold i think its a biostar GF8200C M2+ yeah im pretty sure its that

3GB RAM should also be fine. If it was 2GB or less id recommend adding another 2 sticks in, but what you have should be fine.

Something to be aware of: "If you plan to upgrade processor from your existing unit, please update bios first before changing or upgrading processors."

The Biostar motherboard you listed supports:
AMD Phenom™ II X4 Processor
AMD Phenom™ II X3 Processor
AMD Phenom™ II X2 Processor
AMD Phenom™ X4 Processor
AMD Phenom™ X3 Processor
AMD Athlon™ II X2 Processor
AMD Athlon™ X2 Dual-Core Processor
AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor
AMD Athlon™ 64 FX Processor
AMD Athlon™ 64 Processor
AMD Sempron™ Processor
Maximum CPU TDP (Thermal Design Power) : 95Watt

(Complete list of Processors supported here: http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=420)

http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=420

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Personally I dont recommending spending much money on this build, as many of the components are quite out-dated.

Intel i3, i5, i7
Z68 motherboard
DDR3 RAM

Would be the ideal build to aim for now and leave's some nice future upgrade options open.

 

[kierenbarwise]

ah okay cool thankyou could you maybe reccomed a good one that would work fine, if you dont mind ? thanks

 

[kierenbarwise]

hey sorry just been looking and i found this one thats looks good to me, but im not good at this stuff

http://www.ebuyer.com/242140-amd-athlon-ii-x4-640-socket-am3-3ghz-2mb-l2-cache-retail-adx640wfgmbox?utm_source=google&utm_medium=products&gclid=CM2hyKu4hK0CFYIPfAodXF_HTg

does that one look good? or is it not that good and i also noticed something on the page you sent me, about my motherboard i noticed it said, socket : AM2+ but some of the cpu's i have been looking at there AM3, will they still work ? i dont know much about please help as im wanting to order one for christmas. thanks in advance

 

[kierenbarwise]

or are the Phenom processsors the best ? as they where at the top of the list

 

[AdrianPerry]

The Phenom II x4 are the best of the list as far as I know.

 

[kierenbarwise]

ok thankyou, okay one last question. will an AM3 go into a AM2 socket ? thankyou

 

[AdrianPerry]

No. AM3 and AM3+ are a different socket type.

The newest AMD motherboards are the AM3+ socket type. And these work with the new AMD BullDozer CPU's.