Looking for advice on what to do when I upgrade

Hey there, I'm new to this forum and I wanted to know what are the most important things to do when I want to upgrade my comp to play most of the new games out there. Stuff like Bioshock and COD4, or Supreme Commander . I would have listed the specs of my computer, but I don't know where on it I would find that info. I need to get a new video card and a fan, lately my comp has been overheating despite the fact that I haven't been doing anything out of the ordinary . I do have the name of my terrible ATI graphics card, which was worth probably a quarter of what the price of it was. Its a SAPPHIRE Radeon x1550 series graphics card. But I wonder if maybe its not the card but somethig else. Anyway I hope to clear that up once I learn where to find the exact specs of my comp. Thanks for the advice!

P.S


[The guy who decided you can only play Halo 2 PC on Vista}

run belarc agent and then post the findings. google belarc to find it

More detail is needed, if you can list the specs of your system (including your monitor resolution) we would be happy to help ya get the most bang for your buck.

But the easiest was to find your specs is to download a program called cpu-z as it is non intrusive and basically just reads the information from your bios, doesnt install any other programs or trial offers of anything, just a simple tool that tells you what you need to know.
Basically all we would need is the processor information (socket type, name, speed, ie LGA775, Core 2 Duo e6400, 2.13ghz), your memory information (quantity and speed, ie 2x 1gb DDR2 800), your motherboard information (model number, ie Asus M2A-VM), and you already listed your current card so thats a start. The rest can easily be found in cpu-z, but if your system is a prebuilt one from dell or HP or some other company, if you list your model number (ie dimension 8400) then we can look up the specs.

But in general, the 3 games you listed are quite demanding so it is no surprise if you are unable to get decent frame rates in those games. Assuming you have a decent processor and plenty of ram, upgrading the video card should be all thats needed to get those games playing smooth, but be prepared to spend $100-$150 on a strong video card to really bring those games up to par and allow you to get smooth frame rates at maximum detail. There are cheaper cards that would still be a vast improvement over the x1550, just a matter of what resolution you run, the specs of your system, and how much you really wanna spend that would be the deciding factors for ya

I ran cpu-z without any trouble, so I'll list what you wanted as best I can:

Processor

socket type: 775 LGA
Name: Intel Pentium D 945
speed: 2400 MHz (this chaged frequently, at one point it was 3400 MHZ)
core voltage: (don't know if this measures power requirements) 1.176 volts

Memory

amount: 1024 meg
speed: couldn't find anything that showed its speed, though something called DRAM frequency showed a changing amount of MHz, don't know if that helps

Motherboard

model: D945GTP
graphics version: PCI-Express

I hope this helps!

hmm speedstep must be on because if it is varying

Ok well you have a pretty nice system, but I would certainly suggest upping your memory to 2gb as it will help your performance, but also with 2gb kits being as cheap as $25 after rebates...its money well spent Your chipset should only support DDR2 667, and a kit such as this would be a nice way to go, of course if you wanted ddr2 800 here is only of those great $25 2gb kits with a rebate. Note that if your system only supports ddr2 667, then using ddr2 800 will yield no benefit even though it is faster, your system would likely force it to run at 667 speeds. I would suggest buying a new 2x1 kit rather than buying another 1gb kit to use with what you have, as replacing it is less of a hassle. Adding another 1gb kit can cause problems if you can't find the exact same sticks. Intels specification charts for your D945GTP motherboard state you can run up to 4gb of DDR2 667, 533.

Your processor is a Pentium D (dual core prescott) and it is set to run at 2.4ghz at "idle" or low load, and it runs at the full 3.4ghz when your doing intensive things like gaming or watching videos, or something like that.

Your motherboard does support PCI Express so that is a good. That means you basically have free choice of anything and everything out right now from the basic $50 card too the top of the line $600 stuff. A VERY high quality gaming card can be had for $100, cards like the Radeon HD3850, (ie this or this ) will provide a SIGNIFICANT performance upgrade over the x1550 you currently run. Or for a bit more, you can get a 512mb 8800GT such as this for $150 after rebate.

As for specifics, you can refer to this review of the HD3850/3870 and see how well it compares too the 8800GT. That link shows the bioshock performance numbers while they also include several other games you can check out. Note that this is a older review and performance has improved with the newer drivers, some games improved up to 80%, but the benchmarks still show you what to expect from the 8800GT outright.

But note that the resolution is very important, as lower resolutions such as 1024x768 or 1280x1024 are still somewhat cpu limited, where as higher resolutions like 1680x1050 or 1600x1200 are much more gpu limited, so the higher the resolution the more important the video card becomes. Unfortunately (according to intels documents on the D945GTP board) your board wont support the newer and faster core 2 duo processors, so you are going to be somewhat limited by that fact, as in some cases even a 1.6ghz core 2 will beat out a 3.4ghz pentium D with ease.

So even though you have a nice system your still a bit limited as to what you can upgrade. My advise would be to buy the 2nd gig of ram and grab a HD3850 or 8800GT. Price to performance these cards are the best value, and its nice to note that the HD3850 could also be used for the Folding at Home project that we at dev contribute too

Also, do you happen to know what your powersupply is rated for? The pentium D chips are notorious for power consumption, and if you are running an under rated power supply, adding in a high end video card may cause complications. So if you could pop the side panel off and see what power supply you are running (ie Enermax Liberty 620w) that would help

Thanks for the help! I wonder though if the price of a video card depends on where you buy it. Would it be cheaper to buy it at a store or on the internet? Would that also go for memory too?

Unless you find a special at a local Fry's, more often than not you will save money by using the internet to purchase computer equipment.

Well for a video card because its a pentium d anything above a 8800gts 320 or hd3850 would be a waste because of the bottleneck

8800gts 320

HD 3850 512mb