[SOLVED] How can I upgrade my current speed & perfomance of my current PC? Is it still possible for upgrading?

[Irwin W]

My current PC:
Motherboard: Model: G31TM-P31 (MS-7529)

CPU E5400-Pentium Dual-Core @ 2.70GHz, Speed: 200x13.5=2700MHz

DDR2 SDRAM: 2 GB x 2

GPU:MSI GEFORCE GT710 2GB DDR3

I'm not a computer savvy, appreciate for yr advice. thanks

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Sadly you can't get much of an upgrade on that platform, even you were able to drop in a higher spec'd processor that your motherboard support. In fact any sort of an upgrade on the current platform would cost as much as buying an entry level concurrent spec'd platform, if not the same.

Can you please parse the make and model of your PSU and the age of the unit? How much have you set aside (in your mind at least) in terms of funds for a possible upgrade? Tasks that you tax the system with?

 

[BFG-9000]

Well sure, if you don't already have a SATA SSD, getting one will make your computer feel way faster for normal day-to-day office tasks and email. And you can move it to a replacement computer when you get one, which you are long overdue for.

OTOH if you are wanting to upgrade to play the latest games, or to do video editing or other demanding task, then it's hopeless and no upgrade will be worth it. It's 15 years old and ready to get a learner's permit.

 

[TommyTwoTone66]

Other than adding an SSD and new CPU cooler, only used parts are available for a system that old so you will need to get stuff on eBay. On the plus side, parts that old are very cheap these days.

Change the CPU for a faster one with four cores. Good CPUs that fit your board are super cheap right now. I’d recommend the Q9550 as it is very quick and cheap to buy. Other CPUS that can fit include the Q6600 or Q8400 either of which would be a good upgrade.

Cha the CPU cooler to the biggest one that will fit in your case.

Change the ram to 2x 4GB, which is the most your board can support. Your 4GB RAM will be slowing Windows dramatically, especially if you use Google Chrome. Throw out the 2GB sticks.

Finally, add a SATA3 SSD as your main boot drive. Don’t worry your motherboard only supports SATA2, it will work just fine.

 

[Irwin W]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Sadly you can't get much of an upgrade on that platform, even you were able to drop in a higher spec'd processor that your motherboard support. In fact any sort of an upgrade on the current platform would cost as much as buying an entry level concurrent spec'd platform, if not the same.

Can you please parse the make and model of your PSU and the age of the unit? How much have you set aside (in your mind at least) in terms of funds for a possible upgrade? Tasks that you tax the system with?

Can you please parse the make and model of your PSU and the age of the unit?
PSU: E SUPER POWER -450W - YEAR 2010

How much have you set aside (in your mind at least) in terms of funds for a possible upgrade?
Below $100

Usage for PC: Beginner for Phoshop, Video Conferencing with school teachers

 

[Irwin W]

Well sure, if you don't already have a SATA SSD, getting one will make your computer feel way faster for normal day-to-day office tasks and email. And you can move it to a replacement computer when you get one, which you are long overdue for.

OTOH if you are wanting to upgrade to play the latest games, or to do video editing or other demanding task, then it's hopeless and no upgrade will be worth it. It's 15 years old and ready to get a learner's permit.

Thank you so much..really appreciate that.

 

[USAFRet]

Usage for PC: Beginner for Phoshop, Video Conferencing with school teachers

Is that actual "Photoshop", from Adobe? If so, which version?
Or the generic 'photoshop', but actually some other application?

 

[BFG-9000]

Note the G31 chipset cannot actually support all of the 4GB you have now--0.6 to 0.75GB of which is "hardware reserved" and therefore unusable. That alone would make Photoshop pretty unpleasant. The paltry 2MB of L2 cache on the E5400 also makes it a slug.

Q6700 is about $13 and Q6600 $8, either of which would be nicer to use than a modern 6 watt Pentium for only 95 watts. While that would require at least DDR2-533, it is very unlikely that your RAM is DDR2-400 as they are 2GB sticks

I should point out that 4GB DDR2 sticks have also always been ridiculously expensive and still are, especially if you cannot use them. While in XP and Win 7 I was able to create a Ramdisk (I used Gavotte) using the otherwise untouchable memory above ~3.25GB on G31 and even put the swapfile on it to sort of still use it as RAM, I never did find one that worked in Windows 10.

 

[Irwin W]

Note the G31 chipset cannot actually support all of the 4GB you have now--0.6 to 0.75GB of which is "hardware reserved" and therefore unusable. That alone would make Photoshop pretty unpleasant. The paltry 2MB of L2 cache on the E5400 also makes it a slug.

Q6700 is about $13 and Q6600 $8, either of which would be nicer to use than a modern 6 watt Pentium for only 95 watts. While that would require at least DDR2-533, it is very unlikely that your RAM is DDR2-400 as they are 2GB sticks

I should point out that 4GB DDR2 sticks have also always been ridiculously expensive and still are, especially if you cannot use them. While in XP and Win 7 I was able to create a Ramdisk (I used Gavotte) using the otherwise untouchable memory above ~3.25GB on G31 and even put the swapfile on it to sort of still use it as RAM, I never did find one that worked in Windows 10.

Note the G31 chipset cannot actually support all of the 4GB you have now--0.6 to 0.75GB of which is "hardware reserved" and therefore unusable.

I absolutely agreed with you!!!

 

[Irwin W]

Many thanks to all the pc expert gurus. Really appreciated for all the advice

 

[SamirD]

I have a lot of systems of this era. Your motherboard is a solid one and even supports overclocking which is nice.

Your current cpu was one of the better ones for that platform, so only certain upgrades are really going to help and unfortunately the one that improves everything--the q9650--still commands a high price. Otherwise, you basically have to choose between speed and more cores. Depending on what you are doing and how much the application can utilize either will determine what would be best. Keep in mind that the OS makes a difference too, and modern ones will cores so you'll need more cores just to have the same performance on an older OS that's lighter (xp or win7).
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compar...-Core2-Quad-Q9400/1099vs1106vs957vs1039vs1045

Next is ram, which unfortunately is out of your budget. But it's out of almost everyone's budget as finding 4GB DDR2 is very, very hard. And getting it to work reliably can be even harder.

As far as storage, an ssd will help more with 4GB of ram and a modern OS than say xp on the same setup. This is because of the lighter memory requirements by the OS itself.

Upgrading the gpu to something faster like a gtx770 would help too, but unfortunately gpu prices are also ridiculous right now.

If you really need an upgrade, I would look for an off-lease used system in the same price range as your upgrades--one of these will be many generations newer and even with integrated video should be much much faster than your current system and easily upgrade to 16GB of ram, which will be like night and day with a modern bloaty OS.

 

[TommyTwoTone66]

I have a lot of systems of this era. Your motherboard is a solid one and even supports overclocking which is nice.

Your current cpu was one of the better ones for that platform, so only certain upgrades are really going to help and unfortunately the one that improves everything--the q9650--still commands a high price. Otherwise, you basically have to choose between speed and more cores. Depending on what you are doing and how much the application can utilize either will determine what would be best. Keep in mind that the OS makes a difference too, and modern ones will cores so you'll need more cores just to have the same performance on an older OS that's lighter (xp or win7).
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compar...-Core2-Quad-Q9400/1099vs1106vs957vs1039vs1045

Next is ram, which unfortunately is out of your budget. But it's out of almost everyone's budget as finding 4GB DDR2 is very, very hard. And getting it to work reliably can be even harder.

As far as storage, an ssd will help more with 4GB of ram and a modern OS than say xp on the same setup. This is because of the lighter memory requirements by the OS itself.

Upgrading the gpu to something faster like a gtx770 would help too, but unfortunately gpu prices are also ridiculous right now.

If you really need an upgrade, I would look for an off-lease used system in the same price range as your upgrades--one of these will be many generations newer and even with integrated video should be much much faster than your current system and easily upgrade to 16GB of ram, which will be like night and day with a modern bloaty OS.

For $99 you can normally find a used Dell Optiplex with 8GB and i5 3500 or so

 

[Irwin W]

I have a lot of systems of this era. Your motherboard is a solid one and even supports overclocking which is nice.

Your current cpu was one of the better ones for that platform, so only certain upgrades are really going to help and unfortunately the one that improves everything--the q9650--still commands a high price. Otherwise, you basically have to choose between speed and more cores. Depending on what you are doing and how much the application can utilize either will determine what would be best. Keep in mind that the OS makes a difference too, and modern ones will cores so you'll need more cores just to have the same performance on an older OS that's lighter (xp or win7).
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compar...-Core2-Quad-Q9400/1099vs1106vs957vs1039vs1045

Next is ram, which unfortunately is out of your budget. But it's out of almost everyone's budget as finding 4GB DDR2 is very, very hard. And getting it to work reliably can be even harder.

As far as storage, an ssd will help more with 4GB of ram and a modern OS than say xp on the same setup. This is because of the lighter memory requirements by the OS itself.

Upgrading the gpu to something faster like a gtx770 would help too, but unfortunately gpu prices are also ridiculous right now.

If you really need an upgrade, I would look for an off-lease used system in the same price range as your upgrades--one of these will be many generations newer and even with integrated video should be much much faster than your current system and easily upgrade to 16GB of ram, which will be like night and day with a modern bloaty OS.

Thanks for your advise SamirD really appreciate that!
Btw, if I were to instal Q9650, do I need to update my current bios which is V4.5 (A7529IMS)?
Recently, I had bought 4GB x 2 sticks of RAM from online China, no brand which cost me around US20, but sad to says it does not works after installation. My PC does not load to Windows after I pressed Start button.

Thank you SamirD

 

[SamirD]

Thanks for your advise SamirD really appreciate that!
Btw, if I were to instal Q9650, do I need to update my current bios which is V4.5 (A7529IMS)?
Recently, I had bought 4GB x 2 sticks of RAM from online China, no brand which cost me around US20, but sad to says it does not works after installation. My PC does not load to Windows after I pressed Start button.

Thank you SamirD

You're welcome. It's kind of hard to tell from MSI's site, but it seems like q9650 support was there from day one, so I don't think you would need to update the bios. There are newer versions though and I would download those and save them as they may not be available when you need them as manufacturers remove support for older items (why I don't know as the space or bandwidth costs practically nothing for older stuff).

The first mistake was buying anything direct from china like that. It doesn't surprise me it doesn't work--if you knew you could sell crap to someone and take their money and they couldn't touch you, wouldn't you? I know I wouldn't, and you wouldn't either, but we're not dealing with good ethics when dealing with shady overseas sellers.

It could be that the modules are actually good, but have support in a newer bios update. But there's also a pretty good chance that those modules won't be supported as they were made with newer construction/design and chips that were never supported. Either way, it's a waste of $20.

Put your old ram back in. I couldn't find a single instance of this board using 4GB DDR2 modules successfully online. Doesn't mean it cannot be done--but it means even in the heyday of this board's popularity it wasn't even done. And now that 4GB DDR2 is as rare as hen's teeth, the chances are even slimmer.

The cpu upgrade is the best bet. Pair it with a solid gpu and keep it on older Windows 32-bit if you can or move to a lightweight linux (even newer linux are bloated).