Upgrading A Cpu

jeffk

Ok Ive gone from 1GB of ram to 2GB, im guessing the next step is improving the cpu...
I have a dell dimension 3100c, with a Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.00GHZ installed.

Would anyone know what cpu it could handle to upgrade it from the current one, or even if its worth the cost to do the upgrade?

Thanks in advance

Scorpion venom

why not just go and treat yourself to a new pc and build one :P

you will not regret

jeffk

Scorpion venom wrote: »

why not just go and treat yourself to a new pc and build one :P

you will not regret

Cause im a poor student lol (always wanted to throw that line out there), plus im going to be building a pc in one of the classes im doing in college.

But apart from converting files and generally wanting a faster pc I doubt I personally would need a fully self built pc.. To me that's for gamers or people with loads of cash to over-clock it and put fancy lights in, etc, the "boy racers" of the computing world if you will.

This pc does me, but with having more know how of a pc, im curious what cheap enough mods I can do to bring it up in speed.

BostonB

A Socket LGA 775 Prescott, P4 3.4gb, 800FSB

And I think theres no point. By the time you spend money on a faster CPU, and more RAM you'd have sold that machine and bought a core 2 duo which would be much faster, run cooler and use less electricity. You can reuse more in a PC you build your self. Though on a tight budget, it probably cheaper to buy a newer old PC. Some one I know upgraded their old machine with a SSD, and was very happy with the difference.

jeffk

I just seen the edit there, thanks for explaining that.

I can stop upgrading with the ram. I have looked into ssd drives alright, but they are mad expensive, something to look into for a newer pc with the latest windows down the line.

bhickey

My advice would be, don't waste any more money upgrading a machine that old. You've already upgraded it to have plenty of RAM so now just clean it up and run as few processes as possible.

zodac

What chipset do you have (use the Mainboard tab in CPU-Z if you don't know)? At least then we can see what CPUs you can get.

And what would be your budget?

BostonB

jeffk wrote: »

I just seen the edit there, thanks for explaining that.

I can stop upgrading with the ram. I have looked into ssd drives alright, but they are mad expensive, something to look into for a newer pc with the latest windows down the line.

It really depends what you are doing.

If you are doing a lot of video ripping, and conversion then a faster CPU would make a tiny bit of difference. The machine won't feel much faster, is my guess. If you are using big apps like Visual Studio, Photoshop then more RAM 4GB would make more of a difference. If doing something that uses the HD a lot, then a SSD.

I think a SSD would make a system FEEL a lot faster, more responsive, even if it isn't any faster for doing things like video encoding. Its also the only thing you can buy for that machine that you can reuse in your next PC. But very expensive. For the price of a decent one, 80GB, you'd pick up a full working Core 2 Duo Machine.

IMO. For general computing, web, office, MP3's the odd DVD rip, I don't think you'll notice a huge difference between a 3Ghz P4 and newer machine. You only notice the difference when doing things that require the power. Gaming, Multimedia, Programming etc.

If you can pick up a 3.4Ghz cheap like €30 then why not. But if you sold your machine I reckon it would probably cost you less than €100 to pick up a newer old Core 2 Duo machine. Ram is much cheaper for the newer machine than those old P4's.

I set up an old P4 3Ghz with 2GB ram recently and found it perfectly usable for just web browsing etc.

jeffk

Thanks again for all the in-depth replies.

The pc cost around 600 4 years ago and ive just paid 50 for new ram.
I have money, but its the idea of paying say 100 etc for a cpu, if as people say its not making much difference. The biggest slow down I have is: converting a mp4 video to avi takes over an hour.

The chip-set is:
Chipset Vendor Intel
Chipset Model i915P/i915G
Chipset Revision B1

BostonB

The only price that matters is what something costs today. Forget all other prices. Your PC cost you 150 per year. or 162 now you've added RAM. So spending 200 on a new old PC, and selling your own for 50~70 seems like a smart move to me.

A Dual Core or Dual Core 2 will be faster at encoding.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2007/Encoding-Video-H.264-MPEG-4,358.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-2010/Video-Transcode-Handbrake-MPEG-2-to-H.264,2421.html

I'm guessing though its not the time taken that is the problem, but that you can't use your PC while its doing it. A cheap alternative I would suggest is buy a cheap 2nd PC, and run it (or your old PC) headless (no monitor or keyboard) hooked up to your router as an encoding machine. Leave it running overnight etc. Just batch schedule encoding jobs.

Incidentally with a dual core, or dual processor machine, its generally still usable when doing encoding, unlike the single cpu machine you have.

If its worth it, depends how much you are doing though. I built a new i3 PC 2.9Ghz overlocked to 4Ghz for about €700 and it savages jobs like that. One job I was doing went from 9 days (on a dual Zeon 2.4 single core) to 1 day with the i3@4Ghz.

jeffk

No sorry, I meant as in it cost 600, so I don't fancy paying say 100 to upgrade a pc that cost 600. I know about electrical goods losing value and cost, id get a fairly high end pc now for what I paid for this basic model 4 years ago.

It can be the time also, because its annoying to mostly now only have the option of a mp4 codec and then it wont play on my wd mini tv because the resolution or that is wrong.

Again thanks for all the info and ideas, if I had say a load of videos and had my own house or a bigger room I could as suggested set up an older pc with some high specs just to convert videos.

I can now say this is as fast as this pc will go, if there's videos to do I can work out times where im away from the pc. Thanks again for such clear information!

marco_polo

Unfortunately there is nothing you can do to your existing PC that will make a dent in those encoding time I'm afraid .

jeffk

Just seeing the bit on building a pc, when I am finished in college next year, ill have done a pc build and a brief/manual on how to do it.

Then I can do it myself and look at stripping bits of this pc and ill still have the monitor, mouse etc to ease the cost.

BostonB

Might be cheaper to change the TV...

jeffk

No sorry its a western digital tv mini media box. It says it plays mp4 files, but from I can see no one knows what resolution works.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=681

BostonB

What I mean is some TV's have USB ports and MPEG4 decoder built in. You wouldn't need a separate box and to be converting things.

One of the apps I've found for this is Handbrake BTW.

jeffk

Ah right, I will end up with a new tv eventually and ill be sure to check out does it have a usb mpeg4 codec support. Im sure when I get that theyll go mp5 or some other new codec

I looked into that and seen the settings on a wd forum, it seems to be as long if not slower that converting to divx/avi. I might retry with the upgraded ram, see if it makes any difference.

BostonB

I didn't think different apps made much of a difference.

Just do it overnight?

jeffk

I was thinking your changing the resolution in handbrake, whereas your converting it to a whole new codec/format in the other programme. I was assuming keeping it the same codec/format would have been faster.

Ah I do put it on if there's a match on or im gone out, work out how long im away from the pc and fit in the videos then. If only it was as fast as mp3 converting.