Old Pentium 4 system, worth upgrading?

[hatemf90]

I have an old Pentium 4 PC 3 Ghz with 2 GB ram and built in GFX card which I used mainly for studying and document typing, but now I find myself using it more for some gaming, heavy browsing, and a MySQL server for development which hogs up about 400 mbs of ram.

I want to add 2 more GBs ram to it and a old Nvidia 9600 card, would the processor be too much of a bottle neck to get any benefit or is it worth doing?

 

[Bassim Ansari]

You won't be doing any major gaming on P4. That's for certain.

All the games nowadays require minimum dual core processor and that single core Pentium will bottleneck almost everything.

You could sell it off, but i don't know how much you would get out of it.

You really need a new system all together within a budget that you specify for yourself.

Don't upgrade the P4. Not worth it.

 

[hatemf90]

Oh no, I have a nice i7 gaming PC that runs pretty much anything I need, but that is so clogged up with games and other stuff I wanted to take advantage of an older PC, it runs fine as it is its just a bit slow, and I already have the 9600, thats why Im asking how much improvement would it be to add 2 GBs of ram (mainly for browsing and the server, not gaming).

 

[Bassim Ansari]

Oh no, I have a nice i7 gaming PC that runs pretty much anything I need, but that is so clogged up with games and other stuff I wanted to take advantage of an older PC, it runs fine as it is its just a bit slow, and I already have the 9600, thats why Im asking how much improvement would it be to add 2 GBs of ram (mainly for browsing and the server, not gaming).

If you just want to add RAM to it.. that would be fine.

It would definitely help if you are doing multi tasking , as 2 GB can be taken up very quickly and if you add another 2 gb, the system won't be a resource hog that much.

That would be the theoretical benefit I forsee.

You would off course, not be able to speed up anything from its current pace.

Just the apps and programs could be multi managed better because of more RAM.

Perhaps a slight advantage to boot time too.

 

[hatemf90]

Ok, so ram would be more useful than the 9600? I guess even light games would be too much for the P4.

 

[Bassim Ansari]

Modern games won't just work because of the Processor Bottleneck.

It's like putting the engine of a Toyota in a Ferrari.

So even if the Graphic Card could potentially run fast, the single core processor will hamper it.

The Ferrari could beat any good car, but not with the engine of a Toyota.

 

[bambiboom]

I have an old Pentium 4 PC 3 Ghz with 2 GB ram and built in GFX card which I used mainly for studying and document typing, but now I find myself using it more for some gaming, heavy browsing, and a MySQL server for development which hogs up about 400 mbs of ram.

I want to add 2 more GBs ram to it and a old Nvidia 9600 card, would the processor be too much of a bottle neck to get any benefit or is it worth doing?

hatemf90,

Within certain limits a Pentium 4 can be quite useful. If your system can use a Pentium 670 which is hyperthreading, 64-bit and runs at 3.8GHz, and with the maximum 4GB RAM, and the GT 9600, then you might still have some use from it. As others have mentioned, the gaming prospects are "marginal, but you might slim down your i7 system and transfer the lighter duties to the P4- improving both systems.

I have a 2004 Dell Dimension 8400 with a P 630 3.0Ghz, 4GB RAM, a Quadro FX 570 (256MB) and it runs 2D CAD- AutoCad 2004, Graphics- Corel Suite X4, Sketchup, and Wordperfect, MS Office,and I've used it for HD recording with an M-Audio 24/96 MIDI and recording card. > Very reliable. The 4GB of RAM allows me to run You Tube or stream radio stations while running a couple of other applications.

You can find the P 670 CPU very reasonably- $20-25 (update the BIOS), a couple of GB RAM for another $15-20, plus the GT 9600. So, possibly $40-50 investment. If it didn't work out, you could sell the system or part it out and use that for another, faster and dual core system. Though I expect you've done this kind of thing, if you haven't , it doesn't hurt to experiment with an old system to get a feel for upgrading- researching, ordering, installing, and configuring.

Just a thought.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

 

[Outlander_04]

The best upgrade for a P4 system at this point is to use it for email


and buy or build a proper gaming pc