How good is my computer compared to today's standards?
Intel pentium 4 processor 3.2ghz 800mhz fsb, 1mb l2 cache
512mb pc-3200 400mhz DDR (that’s the ram I think)
250gb 7200 hard drive
ati radeon 9200 graphics card
i bought this thing like 5 yrs ago, starting to show it’s age now do u think it could be pretty on par to today’s standards if I upgraded the ram and video card? Ram is expendable to 2gb I think
ALSO, HOW IS the 3.2 ghz pentium 4 processor compared to the core duo 2.4 on the new MacBook pros? I’m not sure which is better bc supposedly Core Duo is newer technology or something.
Tagged with: ati radeon 9200 • DDR • drive ati • duo 2 • fsb • ghz pentium • graphics card • hard drive • intel • intel pentium 4 • intel pentium 4 processor • newer technology • pc 3200 • Pentium • processor • ram • video card
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You’re way obsolete. The video card you have isn’t *really* bad, but really the only redeeming thing is the hard drive and even that is small by today’s standard (1 TB 7200 RPM w/32 MB cache is pretty cheap – yours is probably IDE/PATA with 4 or 8 MB cache unless it’s an upgrade). Core 2 Duo’s are also obsolete by about 2 years. There are plenty of laptops out there with 2+ GHz quad cores now (3-4 times more powerful than your P4). Also there is DDR3 running at 1333 to 1600 MHz at 4 GB (so 8 times more RAM at 3-4 times the speed). You can also get laptops that have higher end GPU (graphics cards) that have 1 GB of dedicated RAM built in.
So basically, a brand new average performing computer will have at least 4 times the performance yours does, assuming no bottlenecks like weak RAM.
Upgrading would be a waste of time since it’s so obsolete that even the strongest component that you have is not up to par. You’d also be limited by compatibility with your old pieces when trying to buy the upgrade parts.
Note:
By more power, I’m not talking about raw speed. I’m sure your P4 can handle single applications fairly well, maybe two, but a good quad core will allow you to do things like run Photoshop, Illustrator, Word, Outlook, a tabbed browser with several tabs open, a media player, a chat program, antivirus, etc. . at the same time without crashing or hanging up for minutes at a time.
_
oversize paper weight thing is slow and old and small small hd low memory week cpu
not much use for it now
Cough up a few hundred bucks and renew it completely
let it R.I.P
the number of cores isn’t really a sign of increased speed, what you really want to look for is calculations per second. a 3.2Ghz may be faster than a 2.0Ghz x2 depending on how well the architecture handles the processes.
I wouldn’t upgrade. DDR is already 2 generations back, and DDR3 has dropped in price to where it’s almost the same cost as DDR2
You would be much happier with a new computer, and it would easier on the wallet comparing upgrading to buying new.
If you’re planning to stick with it, max out your RAM. 512MB is pitiful, it might be possible to max it to 2GB but you need to find out the mother board specs. As far as your second question, Core2 Duo is superior to any Pentium 4.
In my opinion your computer is obsolete and needs to be upgraded as the newer programs and games won’t function as well as they should. In computer years a computer that is 3 years old is relatively ancient. As for upgrading to 2gb of ram and a new video card, it wouldn’t make your computer speed increase as those components don’t dictate the speed of your actually computer. Also on your other question I would say that the core duo 2.4ghz would be a better place to be out of those 2 cpu’s that you are looking at but at the end its better to get something more powerful that you might not even use; its better to buy something a little more powerful than what you actually need.