[Owey]

Hi

I used to have time to keep half an eye on systems and their associated peripherals but no longer. I built the current PC 5 years ago with the plan on keeping it upgraded but a change of jobs (to a trainee) meant I no longer had the $$$ to pay for any upgrades.

I would ideally like to build a new system from scratch but the $$$ still won't allow it at the moment but I am in a position to get a couple of new parts to try and improve the system. I am not looking for the PC to play top end games or anything like that, I just want to speed it up for the time being until I can afford to make a new system.

My current system has these components

· Gigabyte GA-8I915P-Duo Pro S775
· Intel Pentium 4 540 3.2 GHz 800MHz FSB
· Gigabyte GV-NX66T128D GEForce6600GT
· 2 x WD1200JD SATA 8MB 7200RPM
· Kingmax SuperRAM 512MB
· Antec Overture case
. Windows XP

I installed another 512MB of RAM a couple of years ago.

I am in Australia (Canberra region) so an online store here would be the place to shop. As far as a budget goes, it isn't a lot, about $300 at the moment but could rise a little if I wait a bit longer.

Any help would be appreciated.

Owey

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Since this is the 915 chipset MB you are limited to adding 2 gigs of DDR2 memory (since you are using a 800 FSB). The manual say DDR2 can be used and you have 2 slots available. Because this computer is so old i do not suggest buying 4 gigs of memory( 2-2gig sticks) because windows will probably only see 3.4 gigs or so and i have never found more than 2 gigs makes the computer any faster. Perhaps in some games but if you are gaming you already have a newer, faster computer.You are maxed out on the processor so the only other thing you can try is overclocking the motherboard. The bios will tell you what you can change for overclocking. Look up the MB on overclocking websites to find out what you can do. Gigabyte MB's are usually pretty good about overclocking.

SRX660

[SRX660]

Since this is the 915 chipset MB you are limited to adding 2 gigs of DDR2 memory (since you are using a 800 FSB). The manual say DDR2 can be used and you have 2 slots available. Because this computer is so old i do not suggest buying 4 gigs of memory( 2-2gig sticks) because windows will probably only see 3.4 gigs or so and i have never found more than 2 gigs makes the computer any faster. Perhaps in some games but if you are gaming you already have a newer, faster computer.You are maxed out on the processor so the only other thing you can try is overclocking the motherboard. The bios will tell you what you can change for overclocking. Look up the MB on overclocking websites to find out what you can do. Gigabyte MB's are usually pretty good about overclocking.

SRX660