Hey all... here are my specs:
Dell Dimension 8400
P4 3.2GHz (stock mobo)
1GB RAM
stock PSU (450-watt, I believe)
Sapphire ATI X1950XT 256MB graphics card
Power Express dedicated gfx PSU (installed in a drive bay)
Hauppauge PCI WinTV Tuner card
60 GB internal HDD (again stock)
2 external LaCie HDDs - 500GB USB2 and 150GB firewire
I want to rip out the two 512MB RAM chips that shipped with the PC and replace them with 4 1GB chips to max out my memory. This mobo uses 240-pin DDR2 533MHz chips.
What I don't know is what this will do for me. Will I see a significant difference in overall performance between a 2GB upgrade and 4GB upgrade. I do a good amount of gaming with my computer (currently playing Supreme Commander and Company of Heroes; can't run S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and would like to eventually run Crysis) and I also use the TV tuner card as a DVR (through Media Center). Plus the usual productivity and Internet browsing.
If I've been reading around in the FAQs and other forums correctly, it seems my CPU is old enough to be a problem. Will I be able to play games at higher video settings/run previously unplayable games with the added memory, or will the bottleneck caused by my CPU prevent that? I'd also like to see my PC run a bit more smoothly in general. Is 4GB overkill? Thanks in advance for any advice.
Dell Dimension 8400
P4 3.2GHz (stock mobo)
1GB RAM
stock PSU (450-watt, I believe)
Sapphire ATI X1950XT 256MB graphics card
Power Express dedicated gfx PSU (installed in a drive bay)
Hauppauge PCI WinTV Tuner card
60 GB internal HDD (again stock)
2 external LaCie HDDs - 500GB USB2 and 150GB firewire
I want to rip out the two 512MB RAM chips that shipped with the PC and replace them with 4 1GB chips to max out my memory. This mobo uses 240-pin DDR2 533MHz chips.
What I don't know is what this will do for me. Will I see a significant difference in overall performance between a 2GB upgrade and 4GB upgrade. I do a good amount of gaming with my computer (currently playing Supreme Commander and Company of Heroes; can't run S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and would like to eventually run Crysis) and I also use the TV tuner card as a DVR (through Media Center). Plus the usual productivity and Internet browsing.
If I've been reading around in the FAQs and other forums correctly, it seems my CPU is old enough to be a problem. Will I be able to play games at higher video settings/run previously unplayable games with the added memory, or will the bottleneck caused by my CPU prevent that? I'd also like to see my PC run a bit more smoothly in general. Is 4GB overkill? Thanks in advance for any advice.