I'd like to upgrade my CPU but I'm afraid I don't really have a clue what I should go for and whether I'll need to think about cooling (I think you the heat sink is a seperate item to the CPU and I'm sure mine is already insufficently cooled as it is).

This is what CPUz told me about my current CPU, hopefully someone will now what it means.

Quote :

CPU(s) Number of CPUs 1 Name Intel Pentium 4 Code Name Northwood Specification Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz Family / Model / Stepping F 2 7 Extended Family / Model 0 0 Brand ID 9 Package mPGA-478 Core Stepping C1 Technology 0.13 um Supported Instructions Sets MMX, SSE, SSE2 CPU Clock Speed 2788.8 MHz Clock multiplier x 21.0 Front Side Bus Frequency 132.8 MHz Bus Speed 531.2 MHz L1 Data Cache 8 KBytes, 4-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size L1 Trace Cache 12 Kuops, 8-way set associative L2 Cache 512 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size L2 Speed 2788.8 MHz (Full) L2 Location On Chip L2 Data Prefetch Logic yes L2 Bus Width 256 bits

Any advice on what would be a good CPU that'll fit in the current slot would be very much appreciated as would any suggestions to a book that could explain all this kind of stuff to me in plain english from a basic level.

frankly the best thing you can do with that system is replace it

with an intel core 2 duo

Quote from Shotglass :

frankly the best thing you can do with that system is replace it

Unfortunatley that's not a viable option for me, a car is much higher on the priority list

Changing motherboard/CPU and to a PCI graphics card could be possible though.

Quote from ajp71 :

Changing motherboard/CPU and to a PCI graphics card could be possible though.

with that you wil have to upgrade your cpu motherboard and ram
and youll probably need a new graphics card and psu as well

Well... To tell you, in my opinion... Your CPU is pretty good. I don't see why you'd change it. ...

Quote from Knight_Atack :

Well... To tell you, in my opinion... Your CPU is pretty good. I don't see why you'd change it. ...

Because I'm getting low fps, maximum 30 when racing with a decent grid online almost regardless of my graphics settings. Upgrading from a Raedon 9000 AGP 128mb to 9600 Pro AGP 128mb made a small increase in fps online in LFS, much larger difference offline/when there were less cars around and a huge difference in other sims.

What kind of issues does an inadequate PSU cause?

socket 939 AMD 64 and duel core are cheap enough now because amd have stopped producing these chips everyone thinks they are bad chips. but their not and you will not need to upgrade your ram. just make sure the new board supports it.

asrock do a nice 939-am2 crossover board that supports both AGP and PCI-E for £45 maybe less now. and you can pick that up @ dabs. my 3800+ amd64 is now £61. £20 cheaper than when i bought it

Quote from ajp71 :

Because I'm getting low fps, maximum 30 when racing with a decent grid online almost regardless of my graphics settings. Upgrading from a Raedon 9000 AGP 128mb to 9600 Pro AGP 128mb made a small increase in fps online in LFS, much larger difference offline/when there were less cars around and a huge difference in other sims.

Very strange... Mind posting your entire computer/hardware/ISP stats? Cause that is a weird thing. Also make sure nothing is tkaing your juice (working) in the background.

Quote from Shotglass :

with that you wil have to upgrade your cpu motherboard and ram
and youll probably need a new graphics card and psu as well

Quote from dadge :

asrock do a nice 939-am2 crossover board that supports both AGP and PCI-E for £45 maybe less now. and you can pick that up @ dabs. my 3800+ amd64 is now £61. £20 cheaper than when i bought it

That's the kind of board I'd be looking for having both AGP/PCI would be useful so I could keep using my current card for the moment. Couldn't find it on dabs though. I found an Asrock board that did PCI and another one with AGP, maybe that's what you meant, in which case I'd definitely go for the PCI one.

Do motherboards come in standard sizes or am I going to need to change my case, as for changing PSU what would do I need to look for?

As for the processor I guess this one including fan would be nice and simple to install, only thing is don't I need to upgrade OS to use 64 bit?

http://www.dabs.com/productvie ... ationKey=11147,4294958623

thanks for the help and excuse my stupidity at this

Quote from ajp71 :

Because I'm getting low fps, maximum 30 when racing with a decent grid online almost regardless of my graphics settings. Upgrading from a Raedon 9000 AGP 128mb to 9600 Pro AGP 128mb made a small increase in fps online in LFS, much larger difference offline/when there were less cars around and a huge difference in other sims.

at what resolution ? sounds kinda low for a 96pro to me

Quote :

What kind of issues does an inadequate PSU cause?

(seemingly) random shutdowns under load

Quote from ajp71 :

That's the kind of board I'd be looking for having both AGP/PCI would be useful so I could keep using my current card for the moment. Couldn't find it on dabs though. I found an Asrock board that did PCI and another one with AGP, maybe that's what you meant, in which case I'd definitely go for the PCI one.

id say youre better off with switching over to pcie with a cheap card instead of sticking with your low end card and paying the premium for a multisocketboard

Quote :

Do motherboards come in standard sizes or am I going to need to change my case, as for changing PSU what would do I need to look for?

nah you have an atx board already ... look at the back of your case if it has room to put 8 cards in its a full size atx and will do just fine
psu ... well what psu do you have at the moment ?

Quote :

As for the processor I guess this one including fan would be nice and simple to install, only thing is don't I need to upgrade OS to use 64 bit?

to use 64 bit yes ... to use the processor no (theres no benefit from switching to a 64 bit system unless youre running expensive math and engineering software on it)

Quote from Knight_Atack :

Very strange... Mind posting your entire computer/hardware/ISP stats? Cause that is a weird thing. Also make sure nothing is tkaing your juice (working) in the background.

My ISP is BT, 2mb normally reliable and I really don't think it's the issue here.

I'll find the CPUz report in a minute.

Quickly it's SiS motherboard, 1.5gb RAM, Philips Sound Card, Netgear wireless adapter.

ATI Raedon 9600 Pro All in Wonder 128mb, dual CRT monitors (both @ 1280 x 960). Interestingly having two monitors never made a noticeable difference to fps, but I guess 3d vs. drawing a 2d desktop require different things.

I keep it clean of all background apps except for the Logitech profiler, Ultramon and the Avast service (not the active anti-virus/firewall part). Cleared most of the unnecessary windows services as well.

One thing that is very noticeable though is it is very sensitive to firefox downloading in the background, both LFS/rF lag like hell offline, not just low fps but a lag about every second making them useless when firefox is downloading, I don't know whether this is normal, utorrent and foobar make almost no difference.

EDIT - Attached the cpuz report and conflicts from System information, not sure if they could be culprits.

Quote from Shotglass :

at what resolution ? sounds kinda low for a 96pro to me

LFS is 1280 x 960 x 16 normally no AA or AF slight drop in performance when I run them (more I just can't be bothered to go and turn them on/off than a performance issue).

rF 1024 x 768 x 16, level 1 AA, DX8. I get non exsistant fps in DX9 but TBH I don't play enough current games to know whether it's the card (which is supposidly DX9) or an ISI specific problem. The fps can stay at 40 using the auto detailing system most of the time on high detail settings (except shadows and lighting)

RBR looks gorgeous 1028 x 1024 x 32 everything on max details. No idea what the fps is but never feels bellow about 40.

N2003 1152 x 864 x 32.

Quote :

nah you have an atx board already ... look at the back of your case if it has room to put 8 cards in its a full size atx and will do just fine
psu ... well what psu do you have at the moment ?

Has 3 PCI slots and an AGP so I guess it's a smaller board? How do I tell what kind of PSU I have?

The bottom line is there aren't any CPU's for your current motherboard that are really any faster than what you have. So, if you want more performance, you need to A) do a motherboard swap, or B) build/buy a new system. If you want to minimize your costs, consider this motherboard and CPU:

ASRock 775Dual-VSTA
http://www.asrock.com/product/775Dual-VSTA.htm

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300

The motherboard is one of the cheapest around and supports: DDR, DDR2, AGP, and PCI-Express.

To make sure the motherboard will fit in your case, check the size of your current motherboard. The standard ATX size is 12 x 9.6 inches. This is the size of the above board.

The PSU manufacturer and wattage rating should be on a label on the PSU.

If your PSU is up to the task, the whole upgrade should cost around 200 GBP or less (rough guess). You will be very limited by your video card, though.

Quote from ajp71 :

LFS is 1280 x 960 x 16 normally no AA or AF slight drop in performance when I run them (more I just can't be bothered to go and turn them on/off than a performance issue).

rF 1024 x 768 x 16, level 1 AA, DX8. I get non exsistant fps in DX9 but TBH I don't play enough current games to know whether it's the card (which is supposidly DX9) or an ISI specific problem. The fps can stay at 40 using the auto detailing system most of the time on high detail settings (except shadows and lighting)

RBR looks gorgeous 1028 x 1024 x 32 everything on max details. No idea what the fps is but never feels bellow about 40.

N2003 1152 x 864 x 32.



Has 3 PCI slots and an AGP so I guess it's a smaller board? How do I tell what kind of PSU I have?

When I had similar gfx card it felt like 16bit colours would been not so much faster than 32bit, maybe even slower, which I find fighting against common sense, but anyway it did more harm that any good to put to 16bit colors.

With your current gfx card and cpu you really should be getting 50-60fps at minimum, maybe bit less at very start behind pack, but really lot more.

Now all I can think about is that you have some software issue in your computer, see task manager if there is excessive cpu load even nothing is running, it certainly should be below 10%
Then in LFS settings make sure you have no fps limited from options and play with that HSV and haze settings, I had sometime something odd with those, got only half fps what I normally get.

Quote from Forbin :

If your PSU is up to the task, the whole upgrade should cost around 200 GBP or less (rough guess). You will be very limited by your video card, though.

I was aiming at £150 max ideally including a graphics card, so I've already ruled a Core Duo out of the question.

I've not found the Asrock board with AGP/PCI but I've found this one: What I'm concerned about is whether DDR RAM is backwards compatable with DDR2 it mentions somewhere 240 pin DIMM and I'm sure the gig I bought was 184 pin DIMM?

http://www.dabs.com/productvie ... onKey=11143,4294956091,11
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer ... mp;spec_type=ZXh0ZW5kZWQ=

Next question is what cheap PCI cards would you recommend for around £40-50?


I'll measure the size of my board in the morning, guess I'll be able to take a look at what my PSU manufacturer is then as well.

Quote from JTbo :

haze settings, I had sometime something odd with those, got only half fps what I normally get.

Yes I found haze gives a large fps boost when on my own with other cars you can't notice it TBH.

I did this testing using the same replay and fraps, it was a single car hotlap so the fps was effected by the graphics settings more than with other cars. At the moment 98% of my cpu is on the system idle process and it's using 2% of my cpu so I don't think I have bad cpu hog. The only thing that is odd is in the conflicts I posted above there were some on my graphics card and my card is listed twice exactly the same but with secondary at the end is this normal?

I think you're just expecting too much from your system and if you want more fps the cheapest solution would be to get a new AGP graphics card to suit your mobo. The best solution would be to sell your old parts on ebay and buy a brand new pc.

Quote from ajp71 :

I've not found the Asrock board with AGP/PCI but I've found this one: What I'm concerned about is whether DDR RAM is backwards compatable with DDR2 it mentions somewhere 240 pin DIMM and I'm sure the gig I bought was 184 pin DIMM?

http://www.dabs.com/productvie ... onKey=11143,4294956091,11
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer ... mp;spec_type=ZXh0ZW5kZWQ=

Unfortunately, no. 184-pin DDR SDRAM is completely incompatible with 240-pin DDR2 SDRAM.

This is the other ASRock board with both AGP and PCI-Express. It also takes 184-pin DDR SDRAM.

http://www.asrock.com/product/939Dual-SATA2.htm

Good luck finding it for sale.

Quote from ajp71 :

Yes I found haze gives a large fps boost when on my own with other cars you can't notice it TBH.

I did this testing using the same replay and fraps, it was a single car hotlap so the fps was effected by the graphics settings more than with other cars. At the moment 98% of my cpu is on the system idle process and it's using 2% of my cpu so I don't think I have bad cpu hog. The only thing that is odd is in the conflicts I posted above there were some on my graphics card and my card is listed twice exactly the same but with secondary at the end is this normal?

Yes, there should be that secondary indeed.

There is lfs benchmark tests, I think you get too little fps with that hardware. You sure that agp aperture size is correct? Also I'm not sure about those omega drivers, might work faster with ati default drivers? At least my experiences have not been too good from Omega drivers.
http://lfsbench.iron.eu.org/?c=completemin

Sure faster gfx card would help, that cpu should be more than enough for lfs, 2,8Ghz P4, it has very good performance, maybe gfx card slows down a bit, but you are now getting similar results that I have got with Geforce 2 MX and that piece of junk was old!

this is the board i have, (and the one i was talking about earlier) http://www.asrock.com/product/939Dual-SATA2.htm when the time comes, all i have to buy is this http://www.asrock.com/product/AM2CPU%20Board.htm and i can drop a socket am2 and ddr2 ram into it

Quote from JTbo :

Sure faster gfx card would help, that cpu should be more than enough for lfs, 2,8Ghz P4, it has very good performance, maybe gfx card slows down a bit, but you are now getting similar results that I have got with Geforce 2 MX and that piece of junk was old!

I've never really considered upgrading to another AGP card because it seems like a waste of money if my long term plan is still to upgrade to a PCIe board. Are there considerably quicker cards available for a sensible amount of money ie (well) under £50, I'd be prepared to go second hand if they are generally reliable.

As for benchmarking tests and so on is there some kind of complete cpu /gpu benchmark like 3d mark that can show where I'm loosing performance?

Quote from dadge :

this is the board i have, (and the one i was talking about earlier) http://www.asrock.com/product/939Dual-SATA2.htm when the time comes, all i have to buy is this http://www.asrock.com/product/AM2CPU%20Board.htm and i can drop a socket am2 and ddr2 ram into it

Is this board still available, I can't find it on ebuyer or dabs?

the 6600GT is available in PCI-e and AGP flavours, second hand you should be able to get one for £40

i used to have a AMD Athlon 2800, and a 9600XT, which was slightly overclocked), but when i upgraded to an AMD Athlon 4000 and a 6600GT, i gained about 1,500 points in 3DMark06, i think i got about 2,300 with the upgrade, which was pretty nice!

http://www.asrock.com/buy/index_Europe.htm all these shops are european so you might have better luck searching there. also if you are going to buy graphics to go with the board then it might be better going PCI-E (the board supports it) i would go for this. it is slightly outside your price bracket but when you see it, it might turn you http://www.dabs.com/productvie ... ionKey=11137,366360000,12
and this is the same card but in agp http://www.dabs.com/productvie ... ionKey=11137,377090000,12
a few people i know have both of these formats and they have had nothing but joy. but i would go for the apg version because the pci-e is only 128bit and so is the agp. but when playing games like rainbox 6 vegas, you will see the difference if you had the pci-e. on a neg side. with that mother board you only get 1 x16 pci-e slot so you will have to search hard if you are ever looking to go SLI but that's another story lol

Something like this be about right then?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/XFX-GeFO ... tem?hash=item130063971784

Which brands are better or is there really not alot between them? and I'm assuming a 6600 GT has dual monitor support?