Best upgrade option

iforwms · Oct 13, 2009

Hey guys,

Thinking about upgrading my pc, where are the bottlenecks? I was also considering buying a Velociraptor 10k HDD, or maybe just a 7200 1TB instead of the 5400 I've got ATM, would that speed things up much? My boot times are pretty slow, and I'm not sure why! Any suggestions how to speed things up?

Cheers.

redduc900 · Oct 13, 2009

Post a direct link to your specific RAM, or at least post the rated frequency and SPD timings.

Marshmallow64 · Oct 13, 2009

IMO no need to get velociraptors in this point of time. With SSDs coming down in price and near $/Gb you should just wait it out or take slight financial hit with a good long term investment.

An SSD will speed up your boot times incredibly. My raptors in raid 0 had a 50 sec boot time, not windows 7 loads in 20 seconds.

Quigsby · Oct 13, 2009

What do you need it to do? Just make everything more snappy?

I would definitely upgrade the hard drive if that's the case to something 7200 rpm or faster (consider SSD?). I personally like raptors but with SSDs out and relatively inexpensive I would look at that. 4 GB of DDR2 RAM with a Q6600 isn't a shabby machine. You just might need to backup your machine and reinstall Windows. That always cured any issues I had with slow boot times.

On a side note, people should try to get their computer to the point where they could nuke their OS with little to no warning and not have any issues restoring. If you can get to that point then you have your backups in a row. Alas, that's a perfect world.

iforwms · Oct 13, 2009

Yeah make it snappier overall. I looked into getting an SSD but they have limited read/writes don't they? So you reckon it would be worth it getting an SSD now, then getting the 7200 2TB later for storage?

I'm not sure if my GFX card is the problem regarding playing some games at higher resolutions??

Yeah I have no problem restoring windows, got a slipstreamed nlite install of xp I made, and all my data is on a seperate partition to the XP install...

Marshmallow64 · Oct 13, 2009

I believe only certain brands have limited speeds and degrade faster. The OCZ vertex and the Intel G2 are the best two SSD drives out there at the moment.

You can probably pick up a OCZ 120 gb for $320 and a 2 tb drive for like $110-130.

redduc900 · Oct 13, 2009

Your RAM is only running at 667 MHz, but is rated to run at DDR2-800 MHz. Change the FSB : DRAM ratio from the current 4:5 (266/667 NB strap) to a 2:3 ratio (266/800 strap) for an effective 800 MHz DRAM frequency. Manually set the four primary RAM timings to 5-5-5-15-2T, and leave all of the sub-timings on AUTO.

iforwms · Oct 13, 2009

redduc900 said:
Your RAM is only running at 667 MHz, but is rated to run at DDR2-800 MHz. Change the FSB : DRAM ratio from the current 4:5 (266/667 NB strap) to a 2:3 ratio (266/800 strap) for an effective 800 MHz DRAM frequency. Manually set the four primary RAM timings to 5-5-5-15-2T, and leave all of the sub-timings on AUTO.

Do I do that in the BIOS? I haven't ever really changed RAM settings before...

redduc900 · Oct 13, 2009

Yes...

Code:

AI Overclocking: Manual
CPU Ratio Control: Manual
- Ratio CMOS Setting: 9
FSB Frequency: 266
PCI-E Frequency: 100
DRAM Frequency: AUTO (at 266FSB defaults to 2:3 for AUTO)
DRAM Command Rate: 2T
DRAM Timing Control: Manual
CAS# Latency: 5
RAS# to CAS# Delay: 5
RAS# Precharge: 5
RAS# Activate to Precharge: 15
TWR: AUTO
TRFC: AUTO
TWTR: AUTO
TRRD: AUTO
TRTP: AUTO

iforwms · Oct 13, 2009

redduc900 said:
Your RAM is only running at 667 MHz, but is rated to run at DDR2-800 MHz. Change the FSB : DRAM ratio from the current 4:5 (266/667 NB strap) to a 2:3 ratio (266/800 strap) for an effective 800 MHz DRAM frequency. Manually set the four primary RAM timings to 5-5-5-15-2T, and leave all of the sub-timings on AUTO.

redduc900 said:

Yes...

Code:

AI Overclocking: Manual
CPU Ratio Control: Manual
- Ratio CMOS Setting: 9
FSB Frequency: 266
PCI-E Frequency: 100
DRAM Frequency: AUTO (at 266FSB defaults to 2:3 for AUTO)
DRAM Command Rate: 2T
DRAM Timing Control: Manual
CAS# Latency: 5
RAS# to CAS# Delay: 5
RAS# Precharge: 5
RAS# Activate to Precharge: 15
TWR: AUTO
TRFC: AUTO
TWTR: AUTO
TRRD: AUTO
TRTP: AUTO

Thanks for your help! OK this is all I've got in the Advanced config in my BIOS I've looked everywhere for the rest of the options you listed, but can't find them anywhere!

Are these right? Any ideas where I can chnge the other settings?

redduc900 · Oct 13, 2009

Set Ai Overclocking under Jumperfree Configuration to Manual...

Code:

JumperFree Configuration:
- AI Overclocking = Manual
- CPU Frequency = 266
- DRAM Frequency = 800

pharoer · Oct 13, 2009

eah make it snappier overall. I looked into getting an SSD but they have limited read/writes don't they?

Yes they do. ALL of them. Some more than others tho. However HDDs all break too, no exceptions.

iforwms · Oct 13, 2009

Is DRAM Command Rate: 2T the same as DRAM write recovery time?

Managed to configure everything else!

So upgrade the hdd and not to worry bout the gfx card for now then?

Here are the stats now...

redduc900 · Oct 13, 2009

No, Write Recovery Time (tWR) is different from Command Rate. Your BIOS doesn't offer the option to change the Command Rate / Command Per Clock, hence the greyed out field in CPU-Z.

iforwms · Oct 13, 2009

redduc900 said:
No, Write Recovery Time (tWR) is different from Command Rate. Your BIOS doesn't offer the option to change the Command Rate / Command Per Clock, hence the greyed out field in CPU-Z.

So should I change the write recovery back to what it was?

redduc900 · Oct 13, 2009

You can, although setting it to AUTO probably sets it to 2 Clocks anyway.

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