UPGRADE - eMachines T3638 w/celeron 420

[georgeberz]

A few years ago I bought my 4 kids 4 eMachines running Vista, I upgraded the video to the 8900 gso w/512mb memory and installed 2 gigs of DDR2 RAM in each machine...

The machines are getting a little old for their game playing

I am wondering what I can do to cost effectively upgrade performance

I was thinking about just changing out the CPU do you think that will give a performance increase worthy of the time / trouble, I cannot afford to buy new motherboards and cpu's or a new OS.

I downloaded cpuz and here are some screen shots

George

 

[clutchc]

Depending on the type of games they play, I'm afraid a single core Celeron and 2GB of memory is the main problem. And I've never heard of an 8900 GSO graphics card. (9600 GSO maybe?) Maybe someone else knows of it...
Since you have a 775 socket, you can upgrade the processor to a 775 socket dual core or quad core (C2D or C2Q). But don't get a processor that has a higher watt rating than your board can handle.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007671%2050001157%20600005851&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Order=RATING&PageSize=20
Vista 32 bit (if that's what you have) will improve its performance by upgrading to 4 GB of memory. As a last resort, if the motherboard has a PCIe x16 slot and the PSU is adequate, upgrade to a faster graphics card. Not knowing any more about your systems, that's about all I can suggest.