What should i upgrade?

[RVD]

Allright, my computer is currently:

Intel p4 2.6 GHZ
512 mb RAM

i was wondering, because if you see the specs for todays games and then look at my pc, what should i upgrade?
When i play games like supreme commander, after i built lots of units, it gets very slow (fps).
And i was searching the internet for RAM chips, but why do the prices vary so much, when they both have the same memory? it doesnt vary a bit, it like one's €40 and another one was €200 ?

[Glopaticki]

You should give us more info mate, but for sure get more RAM. 512mb sadly doesn't quite cut it anymore

[ImJ]

you could upgrade ur processor to a AMD Athlon 4000 + or over because those are very cheap and they are good
and buy another 512mb and put it in the extra ram slot
and btw its some times more expensive because of the mhz of it, eg, 667 or 800mhz, you get 1 x 1 ram or 2 x 1 ram to

[RVD]

what else do you want to know? here's my graphics card
ATI Radeon 9600 TX 128 mb
which works fine for me btw, i dont need the very best graphics, im satisfied with 1024*768...
i dont want super expensive top of the line products, i just want a decent computer to run most modern games on..
thanks for your help so far

btw: im a bit of a noob in hardware: is that AMD Athlon a dual core?

[ImJ]

Yes, it is, and if you want a cheap gfx card that is good, Get a 7 series GeForce or you can get a ATI which im not a big fan of but X1650 Pro, it is kind of cheap like £30 or so, but imo, nVidia Geforce is muuch waaaay better

[RVD]

another question:

that AMD athlon 4000 was like 2.2 GHZ. Does this mean both cores are at 2.2 ghz (so 4.4 ghz in one cpu), and are they faster for that reason?

And for the ram: i want DDR2 right, not DDR? and should i replace the ram with either a pair of 512's or a single 1024 or should i fit another 512 megs in it (i have 2 slots, but the stock ram came with my computer, so i dont think i can find the exact same one.)

[ImJ]

yes, it has 2 processors which makes it double the GHz
i'll decide to buy 1GB ram instead of having two 512mb, waste more slots and you can always upgrade later ^_-

[RVD]

yeah, i was thinking about that too. Well thanks a lot, i'll browse the internet and see what i will buy.

[PSZeTa]

First of all: You're running on the old P4 platform, I think it's socket 478? Upgrading to the latest Intel processors would require you to buy a new motherboard, the same with AMD. Latest Intels use socket 775, AMD's current socket is socket AM2.

Prices of ram memory modules vary because of their speeds in MHz and their timings.

If a 9600 is sufficient for you, then a lowrange 7-series will do fine, such as the 7300. If you want more and are willing to pay the price, a 7600 series card would be good to. For mainstream gamers on a little higher budget: 7900GS or 8-series equivalent. These graphics card are meant to be used with a PCI-Express motherboard slot. If you're getting a new mobo, you'll most likely have PCI-E slots on your board. AGP slots are slowly being phased out, thus your current card will soon be useless.

AMD Athlon 64 dualcores are called ''X2'', Intel's newest dualcores are called ''Core2Duo''.

Example:
AMD64 X2 3800+ (and usually the core name here, such as Manchester)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600

Having a dualcore 2.2GHz is somewhat different from a 4.4GHz single core. A dual core is faster in running multiple programs at the same time, while a 4.4GHz single core would be best when running them one at the time. So it's rather hard to compare.

If you're running socket 478, then you probably have DDR memory at the moment. Newer S775 boards have DDR2 and AM2 too, while the older AMD socket (939) runs at DDR.

[RVD]

ow, thanks for that.

well my pc is like 3 or 4 years old, where can i see which sockets i'm on?

so what would u guys suggest, i just want a pc on which i can play the newest games on, and do some homework on, for a low price.
EDIT:

here's my motherboard below, so, should i get a new one or not?