Ok here's the deal. I've had my homemade system for about 3.5 years now, so obviously performance isnt exactly top notch any more (though its still a very capable system). Only problem is, I have no idea what the bottleneck component is. That goes beyond my hardware knowledge. So, heres my question. Based on the specs below, whats my bottleneck (as in, which one will give me the biggest improvement per £).

In no particular order:

CPU: AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+, MMX, 3DNow (2 CPUs)
Memory: 3072MB RAM (2x GEIL 1GB, 1x generic cheap 1GB, dont know the model or how to find out without taking them out)
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600)
GFX: Sparkle NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB (running at 1440x900)
Mobo: ASUS M2N32-SLI DELUXE
HDD: 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM (one 250GB, one 500GB)

Any suggestions?

tbh i dont like the idea of non matched pairs in the memory dept.

Memory usually likes to be all running at the same speed, i.e. having 2x1Gb fast mem + 1 gb unmatched slow mem would equal the whole system running at the speed of the slow memory, and actually removing the slower unit and losing out on 1Gb of ram may even speed up the system.


However your board may not be of the spec that requires "matched pairs" and such more memory is better,

Also I assume you would rather try to upgrade one component of your pc, as opposed to ripping out the "heart" cpu/mem/MB

Without looking into your full specs I would say if the cpu is old then see if you can get the fastest CPU which still fits your MB socket, and if poss get 2x2GB matched memory of the fastest speed your MB supports

I'd leave the OS/HDD as getting a SSD HD is overkill in terms of bang for buck and your GPU is prob fine for that res.

addendum

Solutions

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct....amp;subcat=1825

This is realistically the only chip thats faster than yours, as it seems the AM2 socket was discontinued not long after your impressive(for that socket) chip was released, its a pretty cheap price and you may get one cheaper elsewhere (usual channels ebay/oxfam/farmers market)

looking into your memory it supports a max of 8Gb even tho your os only supports 3.5Gb and memory speeds of 533/667/800

Solutions
so i'm not entrely sure if this
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct....&subcat=813

is better than 2x of
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct....&subcat=813

as the first link is for 4gb of dual chan memory, but i assume it would run in single channel mode at the same speed as the second link , maybe 5/MF can clarify??

cpu as K suggests, and graphics card - thats a 3ish year old card now and ive had 2 different cards since i owned an 640mb 8800gts each making a noticeable improvement - although my 1gb 4870 has lasted longer then i thought as it still runs the latest games on max at a decent fps (i get a pretty stable 45fps on bc2) so i wont be upgrading from that anytime soon

Any opinion on the RAM 5?

as k says its usually better to run dual channel/same make ram, however tbh i don't think youll notice any difference as thats not where your 'bottleneck' is.

So between the GFX and CPU which is more likely to give me the biggest performance boost - assuming I spend about £80 on a CPU or £100 on a GFX card.

i cant decide which one to say, im tempted to say cpu first with a view to upgrading gfx card in the not to distant future...

To be honest IMO it's definitely the CPU, the 8800 is a very old card now, but in general the series has aged extremely well, plus if you upgraded that now all that would happen is your CPU would bottleneck it furiously, plus upgrading your CPU usually provides you more performance benefits overall, whereas your GPU only makes a difference in specific programs like games. You're better with a general high end system with a weak GPU than the other way around, I know that from personal experience.

I also don't really think changing the memory would do that much for you unless you specifically went for some ultra-high performance/low latency sticks, since really having 3gb of stock RAM is enough for most people, and changing it might make certain things a bit "snappier" but wouldn't really effect performance all that much.

I haven't looked at what CPUs are available for the AM2 socket for a while so I would pretty much go with what K recommended, except that just feels like a lot of money to spend on an old socket with no future (AM2), especially with AMD and Intel's new architectures coming late this year/early next year, so it might be worth holding off and (if you haven't already) buying a decent value aftermarket heatsink for your CPU and seeing if you can OC it a bit to keep it going.

Failing that it might also be worth spending a bit more and just replacing the entire mobo, cpu and memory setup with a decent value budget AM3+ socket, that way at least you get DDR3 support so it will be somewhat future-proof for a while, I actually have a list of parts I wrote for someone else a few weeks ago if you're interested, but again that's pretty budget specific and if you can't afford it then you can't afford it.

This is just my opinion though and I'm sure a lot of people would disagree with me, so it's up to you obviously.

My choice at the moment is either to upgrade now or hold back and save up for an entirely new system. Sadly enough, the only reason im even thinking about this is because I get some choppiness on Sims 2 + all expansions + extra floor levels + 8 occupied apartments + extremely stylish communal areas + long draw distances and high gfx settings. Maybe I should settle for a bit less, since my system can play everything else I want perfectly fine

Double post, whoops

When was the last time you cleaned the inside and gave it a tune up? I think i would upgrade the CPU before the graphic card but i would do the card in the near future. and like the rest have mention its not really good to mix and match Ram

Its fairly clean inside anyway, it doesnt tend to gather all that much dust and I recently installed a new heat-sink and fan which prompted me to clean out what little crap there was. I've never bothered with overclocking, though I may look into it. Im just afraid of slagging my components through impatience.