I need help about pc upgrade

[Cefa]

Okay, i want to upgrade my pc its really slow and i dont know what to do i would like to add like 2 to 3 components so my pc could work better. I would like to get tips from you so i could i upgrade my pc

Here is my configuration:
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core 4000+ 2.10 Ghz
RAM: 4 GB
Graphic card: ATI Radeon HD 3600 Series

And i have Windows 7

[DaveLembke]

Its probably a socket AM2 or AM2+ motherboard. We need motherboard make/model to see what CPU's your system supports and if it maxes out at 4GB or 8GB of RAM. You might be at the maximum memory at 4GB. Some boards of this time period only supported 4GB, the newer boards or most boards with 4 memory slots supported 2GB per slot for a total of 8GB?

If you dont know the motherboard make/model then if it was a purchased system such as a HP or Dell or Compaq etc, we need the make and model # of the system?

Also what 2 or 3 components are you looking to add?

Also what games or software are you looking for this system to support that it might struggle with now?


For starters, the video card could be upgraded and that would make a pretty significant difference. If your motherboard supports a quadcore processor, upgrading to a Athlon quadcore or even a Phenom quadcore would help, however I have a Athlon 64 x2 4450B 2.3Ghz Dual-Core and with a decent video card its not a bad dual core. The CPU all depends on what software or games you plan on running.

Lastly upgrading to a SSD makes a big difference as well and for under $100 you can upgrade to a 128GB or maybe even 240GB SSD making that 8 or so year old dual-core system feel like new. Also to mention, how fast is your internet as for computer hardware cant make the internet faster of your connection is a weak internet connection speed.

[Mark.]

two major factors to consider are 1) budget and 2) usage.


so assuming money is tight and usage isn't going to change, the best upgrade for the smallest outlay with the biggest 'wham' factor would be in swapping your hard drive for a Solid State Drive.
clone your current drive to the new SSD and simply unplug the old drive and swap in the new.
no reinstalling, no downtime.


free cloning software like Macrium Reflect could achieve this, or if you get (for example) a Samsung SSD, they include software to migrate to the SSD for you.


that would be my personal preference, but really, you may just need a good maintenance regime put through the PC, or just wipe the drive and reload Windows.
there are many options on how this particular cat could be skinned.


your RAM, CPU and video card, while not the latest or greatest, are obviously all you need.
and upgrading the memory or graphics won't improve things too much, your CPU would still be the bottleneck.


then there's the over-riding factor - is the expenditure of time and money better spent towards a replacement unit rather than an upgrade?
it's a personally decision with no right or wrong answer really.

[DaveLembke]

Very Cheap CPU Upgrade option might be possible to upgrade to a Phenom Quadcore like this one, but we need to know what you have for hardware to ensure that its a match or not to what your system will support. This here is a Phenom x4 9550 2.2Ghz http://www.ebay.com/itm/AMD-Phenom-X4-9550-Socket-AM2-AM2-CPU-HD9550WCJ4BGH-2-20GHz-/332359990161?epid=74121847&hash=item4d6232fb91:g:vwEAAOSw2b1Zo7Y7

While I agree with mark on the SSD upgrade makes quite a difference and is easier, from my experience with the Radeon HD 3000 to 5450 GPU's in systems that I own, the 3000 series radeon is a weakling and for around $30 a brand new video card could be added to make better performance with streaming video and games.

My Athlon 64 x2 4450B 2.3Ghz which is similar benchmark to your CPU I have paired with a Radeon HD 5450 instead of the Radeon HD 3000 which is onboard. There is quite a difference between the HD 3000 and HD 5450 and the 5450 and 6000 series radeon video cards can be picked up for around $30 if thats something that interests you.

Biggest thing is whats your application for this system so we know what exactly needs to be sped up... such as I mentioned prior if its internet is slow its probably just that internet is slow and not so much the computer etc.

Lastly on the SSD subject the best part of that upgrade is that say you do that upgrade and your system will be faster to boot and load programs, but applications remain the same speed in CPU execution, you eventually find yourself needing a better system for some reason, that SSD can migrate forward to a newer build so its not wasted money. Video card also can migrate forward to a newer build as well. But for maybe $10 you can more than double the processing power by leaping forward to a high end CPU such as the Phenom x4 9550 2.2Ghz vs the Athlon 64 x2 4000+ 2.1Ghz. *Note: single threaded applications will run about the same but applications able to tap into multithreaded execution will be more responsive. Single threaded applications would only run 100Mhz faster in execution due to the 2200Mhz vs 2100Mhz difference unless able to make use of the extra cache that the Phenom has in which there is 2MB of L3 cache and your current CPU doesnt have any L3 cache.

Here is your current CPU for specs etc: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103774
Here is what you might be able to upgrade to cheaply for specs: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103251

If able to upgrade to this and confident in your ability to perform a CPU upgrade or have someone else who is around who might be able to help hands on, for $10, I'd perform the upgrade. But dont purchase this just yet, we need to make sure your motherboard would handle this and verify that cheap upgrade to older hardware makes sense or not.

Here is your current CPU benchmark = 1042 = https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Athlon+64+X2+Dual+Core+4000%2B

Here is the Phenom x4 9550 benchmark = 2549 = https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Phenom+9550+Quad-Core

2.5x faster benchmark, but that doesnt mean necessarily that stuff will launch 2.5x faster, however the SSD would make stuff launch faster by its ability to feed the RAM a faster dump of information than the Hard Drive can.