Technical Questions!

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Sup fellas =) I was just wondering, about my computer. Any advice or answers would be truely great. Here goes. I have a Pent4 2.4 Ghz, 384mb ram, and a GeForce4MX440 Series (64mb VidCard). I was thinking about an update... getting another stick of 256ram, making it a sum of 640 something ram lol...

My question is, would a 2.4Ghz Comp be able to use all that RAM? And also, do you think if I upgraded my vid card to a ATI 256mb Card, it will work?

Anyone good at computers, this is your chance to show off =) And be proud lol. Thank you ESF community

-Your friendly neighbour That Guy =)
 
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You'd have to check what type of memory you have to beign with, depending on waht type it may be (ddr or rd memory, rd being no longer used & hard & costly to find these days). As for a new 256mb ati card, depending on waht chipet it is (9600/pro/xt, 9800/pro/xt) I would not touch any 256mb cards from the 9600 series, thought you should look at getting a geforce 6 series based card (ethier a geforce 6600gt or geforce 6800 would do good). Before doing a gfx card upgrade though, make sure you have atleast a 350wat psu (as my brother's pc wouldn't boot with his 9800 & he had to disconnect his cd-rom).

However though, if I were you i'd just got a whole new stup altogether. Get a new mainboard that features pc-ie, new memory, cpu, Power supply (400w i'd say) & gfx card. You could go with a LGA 775 setup, or a socket939 based mainboard for AMD athlon64/opteron processors (socket 939 chips are hard to find though, but a new batch came in not so long go to america :)).
 
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jagan said:
Sup fellas =) I was just wondering, about my computer. Any advice or answers would be truely great. Here goes. I have a Pent4 2.4 Ghz, 384mb ram, and a GeForce4MX440 Series (64mb VidCard). I was thinking about an update... getting another stick of 256ram, making it a sum of 640 something ram lol...

My question is, would a 2.4Ghz Comp be able to use all that RAM?
Any computer can probably use any amount of RAM if you wanted it to ;); but in your case, most definitely. Windows alone probably takes out a good portion of it.
And also, do you think if I upgraded my vid card to a ATI 256mb Card, it will work?
It will work, yes, but not well. It'd probably be bottleneck (read:retarded) by the rest of your computer. Like huge tires on a slow car (not saying your computer is bad).
 
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Okay... my gf told me to get a new comp as well =/ but, i think, since my computer is only 2 years old... I thot changing the Vid card wouldnt be a bad idea... Anyways since today was boxing day, I bought 2 things...

1)512mb RAM memory stick (20$ Canadian)
2)GeForceFX5500 256mb something like that (60$ Can)

So, its too late to turn back now, unless I havent opened the package and can refund it. Now, my Question is... would my computer REALLY not be able to handle it? Pentium4 2.4ghz? I dunno, I thot that would be pretty new... My bro recently got a new computer, and it's only 3.0Ghz so I dunno, anyways, please give advice, thanks alot guys =D
 
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For your computer, a 9800Pro/6600GT would be perfect.
 
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You got an FX5500 with 256mb of memory, ther'e crap plus the extra memory is a gimmic. If anything you should get a geforce 6600gt or a Radeon 9800pro at the very least.
 
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jagan said:
My question is, would a 2.4Ghz Comp be able to use all that RAM?
32-bit cpu can address 4 gigs of physical memory max, so yes.

(yes, i'm aware there's an intel cpu extension to allow for 8 gigs but nobody uses it)
 
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Kurt said:
32-bit cpu can address 4 gigs of physical memory max, so yes.

(yes, i'm aware there's an intel cpu extension to allow for 8 gigs but nobody uses it)
However some mainboards/chipsets can't support 4gb or 8gb of memory, but that's a dependent on what chipset/mainboard you are using. More then two slots of memory also means higher memory timings.
 
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Smith| said:
Not to my knowledge.
To my knowledge it is, but i'm not exactly sure that it's the case with an intel platform considering an a64's memory controller, but ofcourse I could be wrong on the intel side of things. But if I were you i'd start from scratch and build a new pc, considering that any upgrades you do to your current setup now will make you feel like upgrading again in future, as with next year's big games will be memory intensive on for your gfx card with that game's textures & also be cpu and memory intensive, & agp is nearly dead as it is, there's hardly any life left in it and hardly any releases for it anymore.

However, Geforce 6800gs is making it's way to agp, so that could be a good option for you to get for a graphics card & some more memory (breing your total system memory to atleast 1gig) and should have a pretty good pc if you don't feel like switching over to a new mainboard, gfx card, cpu & what not.

Make sure your power supply is up to scratch too.
 
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Saiyan_Overlord said:
To my knowledge it is, but i'm not exactly sure that it's the case with an intel platform considering an a64's memory controller, but ofcourse I could be wrong on the intel side of things. But if I were you i'd start from scratch and build a new pc, considering that any upgrades you do to your current setup now will make you feel like upgrading again in future, as with next year's big games will be memory intensive on for your gfx card with that game's textures & also be cpu and memory intensive, & agp is nearly dead as it is, there's hardly any life left in it and hardly any releases for it anymore.
More than two memory slots doesn't = more latency. Your post really didn't make any sense, so I'll sort it out for you. Intel can handle 4 slots of memory fine, and so can AMD. Only, some of the AMD 64 bit processors with the integrated memory controller cannot handle 4 sticks of memory running at 400MHz at 1T, so it'll drop it down to 333MHz; it doesn't change the latency at all. The newer AMD processors should/have an updated memory controller which solves this issue, I believe.

Also, the AGP 6800GS is slower than the PCI-E 6800GS, which makes it lose any advantage it had over the 6800GT. So I wouldn't count on it saving the day.
 
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alright, keep the gig of memory you bought (make sure its compatible with your mobo and all of the other hardware) go out and do what smith said, get a 6600gt in the AGP bus. Make sure you have atleast a 350-400 watt psu (i'd get 450+ just to be safe) and you should be okay.

That FX5500 is okay, but your processor can handle more powerful cards, just be sure that you have the correct slot for your video card ( you know, AGP 2x, 4x, 8x and 8x pro).

If my post confused you, then ignore it and talk to Smith. I know a lot, but the others know so much more. :)
 
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And problems get solved a whole lot faster in real time. Contact me on AIM for more opinions/views.
 
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Smith| said:
More than two memory slots doesn't = more latency. Your post really didn't make any sense, so I'll sort it out for you. Intel can handle 4 slots of memory fine, and so can AMD. Only, some of the AMD 64 bit processors with the integrated memory controller cannot handle 4 sticks of memory running at 400MHz at 1T, so it'll drop it down to 333MHz; it doesn't change the latency at all. The newer AMD processors should/have an updated memory controller which solves this issue, I believe.

Also, the AGP 6800GS is slower than the PCI-E 6800GS, which makes it lose any advantage it had over the 6800GT. So I wouldn't count on it saving the day.
The agp version has the same clocks as the 6800gt & has 12 pipes. & as always with what was done at nvidia with agp 6600gt cards is that someone put the stock speed on the memory 100mhz slower then the pcie model (still same core though). You could easily push the card to these speeds anyway.
 
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Saiyan_Overlord said:
The agp version has the same clocks as the 6800gt & has 12 pipes. & as always with what was done at nvidia with agp 6600gt cards is that someone put the stock speed on the memory 100mhz slower then the pcie model (still same core though). You could easily push the card to these speeds anyway.
Exactly, meaning it loses any advantage/equality over the 6800GT that the PCI-E version had. Also, you're comparing the overclocking of memory to that of the GPU, the latter of which is harder to accomplish.
 
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There is a rumor that Albatron will come with an AGP 6800GS with the speeds of the pci-e speeds.(And the chance of unlocking the last set of pipes)

This is just still a rumor, so I wouldnt bet on it.
 
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yes, that "rumor" is true. Albatron is creating a card that plugs into your agp slot that allows you to install and run a PCIe video card in your AGP slot. This technology is called ATOP (yes, very original isnt it?) and it can be found by clicking on this hyperlink
 
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Walmart Security said:
yes, that "rumor" is true. Albatron is creating a card that plugs into your agp slot that allows you to install and run a PCIe video card in your AGP slot. This technology is called ATOP (yes, very original isnt it?) and it can be found by clicking on this hyperlink
It's a little pountless though considering that atleast half or more of the systems using agp with this technology will bottleneck that card if the cpu speed is slow.

EDIT: On closer inspection it seems to be a agp to pcie converter (allowing you to use a agp card in a pc-ie based mainboard rather then the other way round).
 
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yeah, I just noticed that. So that ATOP technology is pointless to him, since he doesnt have PCIe, I think they did that so they could avoid bottlenecking.
 

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