What is the bottleneck for this system?

[astroruben]

What is the bottleneck (hardware which is the main reason why system is slow) for this XP system?

P4 2.26Ghz 533FSB
PC2700C2 256MB RAM
WD200BB (OS) Primary IDE - Master
WD800JB (video) Primary IDE - Slave
Sony DRU500 Secondary IDE - Master
WD200BA (mp3) Secondary IDE - Slave
All-in-Wonder Radeon 9700 Pro
SoundBlaster Live! MP3+

Current 3D Mark Score: 12915
Used for: Gaming, TV/VHS capture to DVD

I believe that memory is what slows down the system, but if I'll add a stick of 512, will it worth it and improve my 3dmark score and overall system performance? Or my hard drives are too slow for my needs? I don't know what to get, more memory (cheap) or Serial ATA card and with a new hard drive (expensive).

Thank you for any comments.

 

[skligmund]

I hope that the SONY and that WD200BA are both CD-ROM drives of some sort, or both hard drives, because having a hard drive and CD-ROM on the same channel IS BAD. A.K.A. Don't do it.

Yes, more RAM would be nice, just another stick of 256 would suffice.

What are we going to do tonight Brain?
The same thing we do every night Pinky; <b>Try to take over the world!</b>

 

[astroruben]

Thanks!

So at this point memory is what slows down 3Dmark/games/video, not hard drive right?

WD200BA is ATA66 hard drive which is used only for mp3 storage and thats why its on the same channel as Sony. The other two are on the same channel; one for OS and the other for video capture/edit.

Just to clarify, these are Western Digital hard drives:
WD200BA - 20GB 7200 ATA66 2MB cache
WD200BB - 20GB 7200 ATA100 2MB cache
WD800JB - 80GB 7200 ATA100 8MB cache

 

[skligmund]

Oh, OK, but I think you will only get ata33 out of that drive because of it connected with the CD-ROM.

Your hard drive is not slowing you down for the most part. Where you would find a difference is SATA or RAID with the drives and moving big files. If you were to spend some money on a new component, it would be RAM.

I was about to go into the whole 'Why CREATIVE and the Sound Blaster is junk and no good' thing, but I decided not to. (As I feel a better sound card would better you performance a tad)

What are we going to do tonight Brain?
The same thing we do every night Pinky; <b>Try to take over the world!</b>