old 939 pc, new Ebay mem?

[penguin32]

Hi all

I am thinking about putting some E-bay memory in my girlfriends old socket 939, ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 MB, Athlon64 3000+ venice, running XP and not connected to the web. Currently it has 1Gb (2x512Mb).
The machine is only used for photoshop CS2 works fine but is a bit slow for some photoshop actions. I was thinking giving it cheap upgrade from Ebay to 4GB might speed it up significantly?
If so would the following work?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4x-Crucia...493508?hash=item2a5ea4edc4:g:wC0AAOSwhkRWg72w
or
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4GB-4X1GB...629034?hash=item1a0b79006a:g:UiwAAOSwSHZWgtab

Or would this CPU make a bigger difference?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111863135655

I realise that it is a very old PC and upgrading it is probably not the thing to do but I do not want to replace this PC yet as it does the job all be it a bit slow at times, not planning to spend much.

Any tips on finding the correct sort of memory to use

Thanks

 

[sdifox]

That mb can take up to 4x1gb ddr400. There is supposed to be a cpu daughterboard that will get you access to socket 940 cpus but finding it will not be easy. Fx60 would be nice but opteron is better. Look for Opteron 180 and oc it.

For PS memory is crucial. I would just get a new machine. Or at least add a ssd.

 

[Deders]

If I was limited to 939 I would definitely aim for maxing the memory out as well as getting the fastest chip I could find. The FX looks like a good contender, like sdifox says an opteron might be better if you can find one.

Remember that 32bit XP won't see the full 4GB, but it's still better than having 2 or 3GB.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I am thinking about putting some E-bay memory in my girlfriends old socket 939, ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 MB, Athlon64 3000+ venice, running XP and not connected to the web. Currently it has 1Gb (2x512Mb).
The machine is only used for photoshop CS2 works fine but is a bit slow for some photoshop actions. I was thinking giving it cheap upgrade from Ebay to 4GB might speed it up significantly?

Will extra memory speed the system up? Yes. Is it worth it? With a SINGLE core Athlon? Depends. I wouldn't spend too much on such a system. Only what you can afford to "loose". It'll not be worth anything you put into it.

Another issue is 32bit (x86) Windows can only use about 3GB memory.

I'd start to save up for a new Skylake Pentium-class system.

 

[Deders]

Another issue is 32bit (x86) Windows can only use about 3GB memory

Probably about 3.5GB, depending on your motherboard resources.

 

[Blain]

If I were spending $$ on that rig, I'd opt for the Crucial memory over the OCZ any day of the week.
Make sure the BIOS is updated BEFORE you install another CPU.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Normally, I wouldn't bother with a new CPU. But that is pretty inexpensive. I definitely wouldn't bother with either overclocking or S940 daughterboards.

Is she actually running out of RAM and swapping to disk while using Photoshop? (Watch the resource monitor) if so, then it should help performance if you at least go to 2GB.

The major bottleneck in that (12 year old) system is still likely to be the hard drive. SSDs blah blah blah. Best upgrade blah blah usability fudge fudge fudge blatherskite. (I am assuming that's outside your budget, but if she's only got an 80 or 120GB HDD in there now, a used Crucial M4 would be a nice upgrade for likely less than the price of a dinner out.)

 

[Erithan13]

If you're planning on replacing the system at some point you could always get the SSD for it now and transfer it to the new system later. Although I wonder how much of the slow PS performance is down to the storage and not the ancient CPU, could be the storage isn't the bottleneck and the SSD wouldn't help there.

 

[sdifox]

Normally, I wouldn't bother with a new CPU. But that is pretty inexpensive. I definitely wouldn't bother with either overclocking or S940 daughterboards.

Is she actually running out of RAM and swapping to disk while using Photoshop? (Watch the resource monitor) if so, then it should help performance if you at least go to 2GB.

The major bottleneck in that (12 year old) system is still likely to be the hard drive. SSDs blah blah blah. Best upgrade blah blah usability fudge fudge fudge blatherskite. (I am assuming that's outside your budget, but if she's only got an 80 or 120GB HDD in there now, a used Crucial M4 would be a nice upgrade for likely less than the price of a dinner out.)

Err photoshop on one gig of memory is homocidal. As in so slow you want to choke someone to death.

Opteron 180 oc nicely. I have a 165 1.8ghz oced to 2.5ghz, not bad. Except the caps on the mb went and I haven't bothered to fix it.

 

[penguin32]

Thank you all for your replies, its a great help and confirms my general thougths on the situation.

Yes PS is running out of RAM as there is only 1GB.

I was only looking at bumping the memory up to 4GB, but then noticed one of the E-bay mem sellers had the FX as well and at that price

I'm not going to try a SSD as I had a hell of a time getting the SATA HDD to play nice when I first built the system, I could never get XP to install on the SATA HDD, in the end I think the problem was XP not reading the SATA driver of a floppy while installing XP but im not 100% sure.

I realise its good money into an old old system but I won't spend a lot.

once again
many thanks

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Err photoshop on one gig of memory is homocidal. As in so slow you want to choke someone to death.

Opteron 180 oc nicely. I have a 165 1.8ghz oced to 2.5ghz, not bad. Except the caps on the mb went and I haven't bothered to fix it.

And that is why I don't overclock hardware that old.

 

[sdifox]

And that is why I don't overclock hardware that old.

No I wasn't over volting or anything. Just played with frequrncy anf multiplier.

 

[penguin32]

quick question, will the FX60 be ok with a stock cooler?

 

[sdifox]

quick question, will the FX60 be ok with a stock cooler?

Should be.

 

[Compman55]

Another thing to consider is that the power consumed by that system make the P4 pres hot look green. Use it sparingly!

 

[Makaveli]

Probably about 3.5GB, depending on your motherboard resources.

Yup my HTPC which is a Opteron 170 and has a Radeon 6450 which has 1GB of ram only has 3GB's of memory accessible.

And I have four 1GB sticks of DDR500 memory in it!

 

[sdifox]

Yup my HTPC which is a Opteron 170 and has a Radeon 6450 which has 1GB of ram only has 3GB's of memory accessible.

And I have four 1GB sticks of DDR500 memory in it!

Time to move up to win7 64bit at least?

 

[bigboxes]

Based on the choices, load up on the memory. That rig is a little old for me. It's at least ten years old. If there is another option of not putting any more money into that old rig and just building a new one that gets my vote!

 

[Makaveli]

Time to move up to win7 64bit at least?

It is using Win 7 64bit

The limitation isn't the OS.

Its an Nforce 4 board and it has only so much addressable space for the RAM plus video RAM.

The limitation is the board and because its just used as an HTPC running Kodi it isn't really a problem. I've wanted to retire her and maybe upgrade it to a Haswell chipset but the thing still pulls it weight for its intended use. So no point really spending the money.

 

[Z15CAM]

WinXP 32-Bit OS only supports approx 3.5 GB's of Ram whereas WinXP 64-Bit OS supports up to 32 GB's of Ram

 

[Makaveli]

WinXP 32-Bit OS only supports approx 3.5 GB's of Ram whereas WinXP 64-Bit OS supports up to 32 GB's of Ram

This is correct but that limitation is there on that board regardless of what 64 bit OS you are using.

ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe feel free to google it!

 

[sdifox]

It is using Win 7 64bit

The limitation isn't the OS.

Its an Nforce 4 board and it has only so much addressable space for the RAM plus video RAM.

The limitation is the board and because its just used as an HTPC running Kodi it isn't really a problem. I've wanted to retire her and maybe upgrade it to a Haswell chipset but the thing still pulls it weight for its intended use. So no point really spending the money.

What? Isnt that what the memory hole setting is for? My box is not wokring so I cannot check.

 

[Makaveli]

What? Isnt that what the memory hole setting is for? My box is not wokring so I cannot check.

Already have that on makes no difference.

 

[penguin32]

End of story is I got 4GB of mem off ebay and the difference it makes to photoshop is amazing!

No waiting for progress bars now!

Cheers all

 

[tweakboy]

Don't trust ebay !!!