Advice on performance upgrade

[Guest]

Hi, i want to improve my homebuilt system to improve performance in gaming. My specs are:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2 GHz (Not overclocked)
Ram : 4gb
Graphics card: GForce GTX 260
OS : Win 7 (64 bit)
Resolution : 1360x768 (19 inch monitor)
MB: Gigabyte GA MA790XT

I am happy with my 19" monitor, my room is too small to get anything bigger. My GCard works well with the resolution since its not a large monitor, I can play games like Crysis 1 and Skyrim with full graphics with no performance hit, though when i use the 2k resolution pack for skyrim the game tends to stutter. Kaspersky and firefox sometimes drain my memory usage.

Budget ~ £200 though id like to save as much as possible

Should i get more ram?
Should i overclock my CPU or get a new one?
Any other suggestions?

 

[Guest]

Hi, i want to improve my homebuilt system to improve performance in gaming. My specs are:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2 GHz (Not overclocked)
Ram : 4gb
Graphics card: GForce GTX 260
OS : Win 7 (64 bit)
Resolution : 1360x768 (19 inch monitor)
MB: Gigabyte GA MA790XT

I am happy with my 19" monitor, my room is too small to get anything bigger. My GCard works well with the resolution since its not a large monitor, I can play games like Crysis 1 and Skyrim with full graphics with no performance hit, though when i use the 2k resolution pack for skyrim the game tends to stutter. Kaspersky and firefox sometimes drain my memory usage.

Budget ~ £200 though id like to save as much as possible

Should i get more ram?
Should i overclock my CPU or get a new one?
Any other suggestions?

Wnorg section, How do i change it?

 

[bkoop]

The thing is, that is a pretty good video card for gaming at 1360x768

Can Kaspersky run at some other time, if it is doing a scan?

Do you game and run Firefox at the same time?

 

[Guest]

Yes, the thing is i just need better multitasking. My uni stuff (portal with lectures etc) is online and i dont like to exit firefox just to take a 30 min break, and kaspersky eats memory at times (with AVP i think) while doing nothing.

 

[geofelt]

The easy thing to do is to add 4gb first.
You are alrready running 64 bit.
It sounds like much of your issues are memory related.
Fortunately, ram is cheap.

Your cpu is a good one at stock, an overclock may help, but I am guessing not much.

For that budget, consider a SSD, it will make everything quicker, and will reduce drive interference when you are multitasking.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, i was hoping to get verification it was a ram problem, cheapest solution
I didnt think an SSD would helpi assumed it only speeds up startup but i suppose i have the budget so ill check it out

 

[geofelt]

Thanks, i was hoping to get verification it was a ram problem, cheapest solution
I didnt think an SSD would helpi assumed it only speeds up startup but i suppose i have the budget so ill check it out

A SSD does help startup, but that is not where you feel the difference. You feel it whenever you do anything, like opening files, internet access, maintenance, virus scans,game level loads, etc.

Nobody who has used a SSD will ever go back to a hard drive.