Help with CPU upgrade

[Pete491]

Guys,

A little help.  I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm trying to extend the life of my PC a little.  I have a ASUS MB M4A78T-E with a AMD Phenom II X3 720 Processor 280 GZ.

I upgraded from 4 to 12 MB memory that helped some but I think I need more processing power since the CPU is running at 80-100% when I am running my resource hog, MS FSX flight simulator.

Will a CPU upgrade make a big difference and which one?

Thanks!!



 

[D.8080]

Hi!

Video card? Sometimes it's a low-medium end card bottling the rig.

After that we may give more precise advice.

Btw, not 4Mb but Gb 4 megs was on 286, 25 years ago

[Pete491]

Here is all the info about my video card:

Name ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9440&SUBSYS_22671787&REV_00\4&204EAC5&0&0010
Adapter Type ATI display adapter (0x9440), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. compatible
Adapter Description ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
Adapter RAM 512.00 MB (536,870,912 bytes)
Installed Drivers aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx32,aticfx32,aticfx32,atiumd64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atiumdag,atidxx32,atidxx32,atiumdva,atiumd6a.cap,atitmm64.dll
Driver Version 8.950.0.0
INF File oem76.inf (ati2mtag_RV7X section)
Color Planes Not Available
Color Table Entries 4294967296
Resolution 1920 x 1080 x 60 hertz
Bits/Pixel 32
Memory Address 0xD0000000-0xDFFFFFFF
Memory Address 0xFBCE0000-0xFBCEFFFF
I/O Port 0x0000C000-0x0000C0FF
IRQ Channel IRQ 4294967293
I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB
I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\atikmpag.sys (8.14.1.6257, 320.00 KB (327,680 bytes), 2/14/2012 8:13 PM)

Name ATI Radeon HD 3300 Graphics
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9614&SUBSYS_834D1043&REV_00\4&456635&0&2808
Adapter Type ATI display adapter (0x9614), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. compatible
Adapter Description ATI Radeon HD 3300 Graphics
Adapter RAM 384.00 MB (402,653,184 bytes)
Installed Drivers aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx32,aticfx32,atiumd64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atiumdag,atidxx32,atiumdva,atiumd6a.cap,atitmm64.dll
Driver Version 8.950.0.0
INF File oem74.inf (ati2mtag_RS780D section)
Color Planes Not Available
Color Table Entries 4294967296
Resolution 1600 x 900 x 59 hertz
Bits/Pixel 32
Memory Address 0xC0000000-0xDFFFFFFF
I/O Port 0x0000BC00-0x0000BCFF
Memory Address 0xFBBE0000-0xFBBEFFFF
Memory Address 0xFBA00000-0xFBAFFFFF
IRQ Channel IRQ 4294967294
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\atikmpag.sys (8.14.1.6257, 320.00 KB (327,680 bytes), 2/14/2012 8:13 PM)


Yes, I meant Gb. Acually my first pc I bought in 1990 was a 386 that came with 2 MB. I paid $60.00 to upgrade to 4MB.

Times have changed.

Thanks!

[JAC]

A 386 in 1990 with 2Mb would have cost a fortune.

My 286-16 purchased cost over £1000 in 1990 with 1Mb ram ( actually 640k and some dodgy re-mapping techniques needed to use some of the upper 384k).


I recommend you install a 120GB SDD as your main drive C: , and move your old HDD to D:

Install the game onto the SDD.

Cant offer much advice on the gfx or cpu.
Cpu tweaking is something I no longer do.

Throwing a load of ram in isnt the answer. You would have been better putting in a bit more ram, upgrading the CPU and/or putting in a SDD.

[Pete491]

Thanks for the reply. Rather than make a lot of changes with no real assurance that an increase in performance will result I think I'm just going to get a new one.

I'd have to spend about 30% of what a new one costs upgrading this one.

I'll pull out the 8 Gb memory I installed and give my current one to my in-laws.

I am NOT looking forward to the work and time it will take to bring a new pc up to speed.

Thanks!!