trying to upgrade my computer

[slimpickins]

right, ill list all the info about my computer and then if someone could tell me what is upgradable and what is good, i just need somewhere to starrt from

3.4ghz
dell dimension 8400
intell pentium 4 550
512 ram
module size 256mg
ddr2 pc3200 200mhz
2x hardrive totalling 600gig (200+400)
cache 16kbits 8way 64 bytes adaptive
l2 chache on chip 1024 8-way 64 bytes

i dlike my computer faster, the comp is 16 months old so i dcont mind up grading it, also i need a new graphics card, the one i have is 24pounds in the shops and a really low q2aulity one

[harley2ride]

Pull your 512mb out, and get 1gb of some high speed pc3200. That will make a big difference.

[RDS1955]

Yup, upgrading the RAM is a good start...What are you using the PC for? Video Work, Gaming, Just surfing the web?.. If your using it for gaming or Video work, I'd seriously consider saving up the money and buying the parts for a home built baby, just do the minimal upgrades on the present one, and prepare for a newer model late in the yerar or in the beginning of 2007.. The type of video card upgrade you'll want/do depends on what it is you want out of the video card..ie.. gaming? Newer games coming out work with with PCI Express enabled cards and that also brings in another aspect, that being what type of motherboard do you have? AGP is becoming a thing of the past.. you could probably find a wealth of info about upgrading your stuff at tomshardware.com, techspot.com,
sharkyextreme.com, Anandtech.com and at pcmech.com..

[Dubber]

UR system is pretty decent, just get extra memory, I'd recommend at least 1GB total, 2GB would be better thou.

[zoobie]

There was just another thread here stating that upgrading your ram to 1gb from 512mb didn't make that much difference. If you're capturing, you hard drive(s) should be running at least 7200rpm.

[deadrats]

slimpickins: there isn't too much you can do to your pc that will give you enough additional performance that you would notice under most circumstances. you might consider going with a nice video card if you do any gaming (don't know what kind of card you have in there now), but from a video editing point of view, even if you could put in a faster processor, the difference will be negligable over the course of a full movie encode.