Upgrading a processor....go for it or not?

[los_design]

Hi Guys

Happy New Year to you all.

Just wondering about upgrading our main desktop processor. Just breathed new life into the old beauty with a RAM upgrade of 1gb and it works nicely, like a new machine thus far.

I am now tinkering with the above idea re the processor. The machine is 4 yrs old (compaq presario 6540uk). The machine is used for core design stages, slicing, database work and not much else but many of these tasks run side by side depending on the workload.

Anyone upgraded their old machine processors? Is the £100 cost for a dual core justified on such an old machine? (RAM was £90.00).

Just chewing the fat and would be interested in your views.

[Duncan Rounding]

I think you've done the best thing you could do on an old machine by expanding the memory. Considering the price of new machines I wouldn't upgarde the processor - you will still be limited by bus speeds etc.

[wjcampbe]

I'm with Duncan. Without the peripherals, the processor on its own would be a waste of money. After memory, the next speedup option would be the hard disk (capacity and speed) otherwise you are as well to save a couple more weeks of profit and go for an entirely new machine.

BTW if you decide at that stage to donate your old machine - see your local school - you would be amazed at how antiquated most school IT department equipment is.

[RuralWeb]

go for an entirely new machine

Agreed - its not worth upgrading these days as new PCs are so cheap.

[los_design]

Cheers guys,

that was pretty much what I was expecting. The total memory is now 1512mb so plenty there for our needs. Not really going for the HD upgrade.

Looking into building one in the new year so will just leave as is then. BTW have you seen what they charge for a 2mb dual core machine with TOTR graphics card etc over on Dell? Over £1250.00 Just specced on out to build and the total cost of like for like parts is less than £500.00!

As for donating, good idea....many thanks.

[pnagames]

its definately not worth it to upgrade the processor.

if you want upgrade something as mentioned above the hard drive is essential (especially with actinic)

probably your best bet would be to build a new one as you mentioned above

[Stereo Steve]

You might also need a large hammer to get the dual core to fit in your motherboard. In which case, you will have to upgrade the mobo, rendering the RAM you just bought useless........

[Duncan Allan]

A nice new shiny Mac with Intel processor will give you the best of both worlds with the benefit of a superior and more reliable computer IME.

Apple specs are greater than any independent just pushing boxes out the door for the lowest cost.

That's the upgrade path I'm taking anyway FWIW.

Duncan

[los_design]

Thanks guys.

Been looking into the HD scenario and my current set up is a 80 GB Ultra DMA hard drive (5400 rpm) including 4 GB partition for system recovery.

Any recs about a new selection? As this is an old machine is there any conflict potential I should be aware of ie my system file set up is NTFS, does this restrict my choice of HD?

at Duncan: a new shiny mac? with 4 pcs networked already can a mac slot into an existing network of non-mac pcs?

at Steve: LOL, already sussed that one, this motherboard would be more at home with David Nicholson than a dual core processor

at pnagames: no real heavy actinic work takes place on this machine, we use our upgraded nx8220 for those tasks as the processor, 2gb RAM and superior set up blasts my old steam pc away. The main aim for this upgrade process is to convert/use the 6540 as a server to run dev tests offline or at least have the capacity to do so should something happen to our lines out to our ISPs.

Regards

[Duncan Allan]

at Duncan: a new shiny mac? with 4 pcs networked already can a mac slot into an existing network of non-mac pcs?

Even easier that it used to be can set folders to share and swap between systems and files are compatible with programmes. Although there are font differences to bear in mind otherwise no probs.

I'd partition the drive so one has OS X and the other XP and perhaps another Vista.

Duncan

[pnagames]

Thanks guys.

Been looking into the HD scenario and my current set up is a 80 GB Ultra DMA hard drive (5400 rpm) including 4 GB partition for system recovery.

Any recs about a new selection? As this is an old machine is there any conflict potential I should be aware of ie my system file set up is NTFS, does this restrict my choice of HD?

at Duncan: a new shiny mac? with 4 pcs networked already can a mac slot into an existing network of non-mac pcs?

at Steve: LOL, already sussed that one, this motherboard would be more at home with David Nicholson than a dual core processor

at pnagames: no real heavy actinic work takes place on this machine, we use our upgraded nx8220 for those tasks as the processor, 2gb RAM and superior set up blasts my old steam pc away. The main aim for this upgrade process is to convert/use the 6540 as a server to run dev tests offline or at least have the capacity to do so should something happen to our lines out to our ISPs.

Regards

for the hard drive upgrade you will need something with 7200 (minimum) or if you can fit a 15K rpm you would be flying.

as for brands i would always recommend a seagate or a WD. both have been top notch till now for me.

[Duncan Allan]

I'd second the WD option as the PC's have these exclusively and the Seagate as an external backup.

Duncan

[Stereo Steve]

Samsung make excellent drives. Very quiet and reliable.

[los_design]

Many thanks for all the input guys.

As a final subnote from the darkest corner of Leicestershire (well it is at the minute)....I have managed to discover a little more about my current HD and its spec, boy it is hard to uncover details about discontinued pcs even from the manufacturer.

The HD currently installed is a Seagate st380022a with an 80gb capacity and 7200 rpm. Based on this and replies herein, the status quo will remain as I feel there will be no tangible benefit to upgrading this model apart from maybe adding 512mb to max it up to 2gb.

Now to learn how to use xammp (offline of course)....installed and ready to rock, I feel another thread coming on

Happy New Year guys see you back in production from Thursday, time for a glass of white.

[I-CC]

In our experience upgrading older machines, even ones just a year or so old with a new CPU or more memory is not going to get the performance increase you might expect or wish for, especially when working on large v8 sites, because the more custom tabs you create and the more variables you add into the tabs at section and product level, the less responsive Actinic becomes, which is down to us (the developer of the site) adding so much into the functionality of the site.

It really is all down to budgets in all honesty, so rather than pay out on components in upgrading, get the best new machine you can at the time, as it will last longer than a memory upgrade or cpu upgrade.

We just got a new machine for v8 developments which was:

Dual Xeon (Dual Core) 5110 (4 cores total) 4MB L2
4GB RAM
2 x 250GB SATAII Raid Drives, more cache memory for faster performance - being the basic elements in the chassis.

Now whether that is good enough, is down to us in what we incorporate and what the end customer wants designed into the v8 site at the end of the day, but because v8 now enables the developer to add so many variable features, connected to custom tabs at section/product level, conditional checks deciding on different layouts and so so much more, it would be very easy to create a masterpiece within Actinic v8 now that needs a massive monster of a end users PC to manage it.

Point to note: Basic system requirements used to be a very good gauge of the machine needed to run Actinic, which is still the same today under default themes or the most basic of customized themes, but start utilizing Actinic's full v8 abilities and that is thrown right out of the window, so in some circumstances a developer thinking of a heavily customized site with tons of variables and tabs might have to factor in the cost of a new machine at the end users location into the equation of a quote or deployment - food for thought ye all.

Happy new year BTW