Processor upgrade on Intel 915 board, raid HD's or graphics card?

Question

I am trying to squeeze out some more performance out of system before I retire her and get a new one. I currently have an Intel® Desktop Board D915PBL with an Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 630. I have a single generic hard drive and a GeForce 7950 GT for graphics. I am running with 2G of RAM.

I am looking at the following upgrade options:

Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 670
Running 2 HD's in RAID
Upgrading to a GeForce 8800GTX
Living with it for another year or so

Any ideas?

http://www.intel.com/cd/channel/reseller/asmo-na/eng/products/desktop/bdb/d915pbl/feature/index.htm
http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SL7Z9
http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SL8PY
http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce_7950.html
http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce_8800.html

Answer 1

I'd go for a processor/motherboard upgrade (if you can find one that takes your existing RAM) I think socket 939 would do the trick...

Even an inexpensive Athlon 64 X2 like the 4000+ will smoke both the Pentium 4 630 and 670, given the same GPU. Your GeForce 7950 can certainly deliver more fps paired with a processor that can keep up with it.

An even faster CPU like a 4800+ or Core 2 Duo E6400 would be even better, but going C2D would almost certainly mean replacing your RAM.

If you were already on X2 or Core 2 Duo, then I'd say grab the 8800GTX, which is the most dramatic single upgrade. But I think you're currently CPU-bound, so you might not see great improvement

For the price of an 8800GTX, you could possibly upgrade both CPU/mobo, and step up to something in the middle, like a Radeon X1950XT or GeForce 8800GTS 320mb.

Answer 2

An i3 is a twin center processor, so in case you play video games it is going to take in a million processor. yet once you do no longer truly do gaming yet fairly visit our online international and stuff, there is no prefer for the improve as once you visit our online international, intel pictures isn't activated so the two cores are used. in case you would be doing somewhat pictures rendering stuff or straight forward gaming, i prefer to propose the NVIDIA GTX650 pictures card Its a mid end card i take advantage of to play severe end video games like battlefield and it runs completely. it is approximately 200$ and extremely stable.

Answer 3

why not you go for the core 2 duo Quad core. its better than pentium 4. Hard disk its ok if 360GB .The graphic card is good .