Pentium 4 Upgrade

[sk8er]

Hey people,
I recently inherited a gateway with a P4 clocked at 3 GHz. I actually does well even though many people hate them. Anyway I don't want to sound like an idiot but I don't know what kind, if any, processor I could put in there. I thought Pentium D or even a Core 2 Duo but I don't know if it would "fit".
Thanks everybody!

 

[sk8er]

I forgot to mention that this is the Motherboard: http://support.gateway.com/s/MOTHERBD/Intel2/2520901/2520901nv.shtml
and this is the page about the computer:http://support.gateway.com/s/PC/510Series/2900046/2900046nv.shtml
Thanks!

 

[HEXiT]

waste of time and money you need a full new build...
chances are its not a 775 socket (nope its a 478)and even if it is a pentium d isnt an upgrade worth the money...especially if your thinking gaming.
by the time you swap out the parts you need to all you will have left off the original build is the case and maybe if your lucky a 160gig hdd.

so do yourself a favor and either forget about upgrading and use what you have or think about a full new build... coz really any money you throw at it will be wasted.

 

[clutchc]

If the board had a PCIex16 slot, I'd say add a good graphics card and you can improve your gaming a lot. But it only has an obsolete AGP slot. None of those (if you can find them) are any good for today's games. Use the machine for web surfing if you want, but for gaming you need new.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Socket 478 = Pentium 4 and Celeron only and with AGP that pretty much makes it useless.

With at least a gigabyte of RAM it would be a decent internet / Office computer for someone who could not afford anything better.

 

[Blahman11]

Well you can get the HD4670 and HD3850 which aren't bad AGP cards. I wouldn't be using that for battlefield 3, but It'll run older games just fine with the above cards. They may be a bit expensive though, but since BF3 rendered the AGP effectively dead now I think AGP card prices have dropped. A 7800gs is perfectly capable of running source stuff and you can find one for £30.

You're pretty stuffed on the CPU front, it supports socket 478 (therefore single core) CPUs with 800mhz FSB which I think means the fastest you could get would be the 3.4ghz Northwood Pentium 4. Basically you could overclock your current CPU to that speed if you wanted.

Basically if you want something that will browse the internet on windows xp, with one or two gigs or ram it'll be fine. For the older games you'll need a better graphics card (and possibly PSU, the HD3850 AGP requires use alot of juice- 30amps on 12v rail!) but don't expect it to run anything new.

 

[notlim981]

waste of time and money you need a full new build...

I second that... :lol: