I'd ditch the Pentium D and get a Core2 processor. Pentium D is Netburst and not a very good design as far as dual cores go. Core2 is a lot cooler, energy efficient and better performance per clock cycle.

I'd also try to get a GTX460 while you still can. If he's already using an x64 OS, then it should recognize a full 4mb of RAM.

sliderider wrote:

I'd ditch the Pentium D and get a Core2 processor. Pentium D is Netburst and not a very good design as far as dual cores go. Core2 is a lot cooler, energy efficient and better performance per clock cycle.

I'd also try to get a GTX460 while you still can. If he's already using an x64 OS, then it should recognize a full 4mb of RAM.

Thanks I will look into this, however, I'm not sure a GTX460 will fit into his LANbox chassis, have to check the length of the cards left out there, if I can find one.

The issue with his mobo is that the chipset only supports addressing somewhere around the 3 ~ 3.2GB range, no matter the OS installed, some kind of limitation with some of the chipsets out there.

So if I were to go that route he would be looking at getting an all around upgrade, I would want to do a new OS maybe on an SSD drive for booting and such.

It only has 2GB of ram installed and I can bump that to 4GB but this chipset will limit the mapped ram available to something like 3 or 3.2GB.

That 32bit OS not motherboard

He is already using Windows XP Pro, x64-bit Edition so this maybe a sign of needing to update the OS at the same time along with a motherboard, new cpu ddr3 ram etc and maybe through in an SSD boot drive.

I get him in Windows 7 64x it far better then XP 64x
The case he has can only take video card that is no longer than 10.6
You may want look at AMD for lower cost over Intel high cost CPU
Motherboard: Gigabyte or Asus
CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 or x6 in Black Edition or may want wait for the AMD Bulldozer come out and see how it pans out.
Memory: I perf Corsair Memory
Power Supply: Corsair 750 or 850 watter
Video card: ATI up to HD 6950 10.2 or nVidia up to GeForce GTX 580 10.5
Harddrive/SSD: Crucial or Intel but rigth now I think there way over cost you min of 32GB but be safe 64GB with Windows 7 with standard 7200 RPM I like Seagate.

For love of god DON'T buy anything from OCZ I have nothing but bad lucky with them 4 time RMA and still same old dead memory man they must no be testing there stuff at all.

shspvr wrote:

That 32bit OS not motherboard […]
Show full quote

It only has 2GB of ram installed and I can bump that to 4GB but this chipset will limit the mapped ram available to something like 3 or 3.2GB.

That 32bit OS not motherboard

He is already using Windows XP Pro, x64-bit Edition so this maybe a sign of needing to update the OS at the same time along with a motherboard, new cpu ddr3 ram etc and maybe through in an SSD boot drive.

I get him in Windows 7 64x it far better then XP 64x
The case he has can only take video card that is no longer than 10.6
You may want look at AMD for lower cost over Intel high cost CPU
Motherboard: Gigabyte or Asus
CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 or x6 in Black Edition or may want wait for the AMD Bulldozer come out and see how it pans out.
Memory: I perf Corsair Memory
Power Supply: Corsair 750 or 850 watter
Video card: ATI up to HD 6950 10.2 or nVidia up to GeForce GTX 580 10.5
Harddrive/SSD: Crucial or Intel but rigth now I think there way over cost you min of 32GB but be safe 64GB with Windows 7 with standard 7200 RPM I like Seagate.

For love of god DON'T buy anything from OCZ I have nothing but bad lucky with them 4 time RMA and still same old dead memory man they must no be testing there stuff at all.

He said he needs a small video card. HD6950 or GTX580 won't fit in the case.

BigBodZod don't you mean Intel 945G chipset motherboard?
Intel D945 is a Processor
Have your brother install CPUID CPU-Z
Before yuo going buying a CPU that some Intel 945 will not work all Core 2 processor you better check the Manufacturer of that motherbaord frist.

sliderider wrote:

He said he needs a small video card. HD6950 or GTX580 won't fit in the case.

Did you even read my post

The case he has can only take video card that is no longer than 10.6

ATI up to HD 6950 10.2 long
nVidia up to GeForce GTX 580 10.5 long
Both card should fit in that box how ever nVidia will be a bit tight but it should fit to

I would go all the way and upgrade everything, reusing what you can. You are stuck on Pentium D CPU's, and this will also limit the usefulness of a new graphics card.

sliderider wrote:

I'd ditch the Pentium D and get a Core2 processor. Pentium D is Netburst and not a very good design as far as dual cores go. Core2 is a lot cooler, energy efficient and better performance per clock cycle.

I'd also try to get a GTX460 while you still can. If he's already using an x64 OS, then it should recognize a full 4mb of RAM.

This

Does his board have AGP or PCIe? If he has PCIe, then upgrading his CPU to Conroe or later, 4GB and 4GB of RAM along with a 1TB harddrive or better (VAST upgrade to a drive of around 320GB or less, also in speed (noticed a VAST improvement in loading games both myself and a friend who did this harddrive upgrade on his Quad Core)).
Then you could even run Windows 7 😉

Edit: Just ftr, I'm using 2 OCZ PSU's and 4GB of OCZ RAM. Running along fine. Though this is kinda a moot point as OCZ wanted out of these businesses.

eraH wrote:

I would go all the way and upgrade everything, reusing what you can. You are stuck on Pentium D CPU's, and this will also limit the usefulness of a new graphics card.

If you can't get at least a Conroe, then upgrading the board would be better.
If you can find a Conroe LGA 775 board, then you could even reuse the HSF as those are beefier then the Conroe ones.

Tetrium just so you know
Intel 9xx all PCIe
Intel 8xx where AGP

Thanks for all the recommendations and yes I meant the Intel 945G Chipset.

Just so everyone knows, there were some chipsets that had memory limitations like this one, it would accept up to 4GB of ram however due to reserved memory space mapping it could only address somewhere in the 3 ~ 3.2GB range, I have tested this already, but it would still give him more breathing room then what he has already as DDR2 RAM is still pretty cheap.

I know this was addressed in the 3x series chipsets and later.

As for why I need the shorter GPU is that he uses a Lanbox, it's a micro ATX form factor chassis with a carrying handle on it so he can go over to his friends place some lan party gaming.

The 7800 GTX installed in there now fits with a little more room left, I just have to measure what kind of card I can install and then check for proper card length.

[Offtopic]
The 3-3.x memory access limitation for 32bit Operating Systems is a MICROSOFT limitation, I think. PAE (Physical Address Extension) was devised about ten years ago and it theoretically allow a 32 bits processor to access 2^32 bytes of memory, 8 GB more or less.

Breaking the 4gb barrier in Windows 7 x86

http://www.unawave.de/windows-7-tipps/32-bit- … er.html?lang=EN

*WARNING* Some people from the place where I found this link say that ads that are NSFW may appear on this page from time to time, so be warned. I've reloaded the page several times and haven't come across anything yet but that doesn't mean the ads aren't there, just that they haven't come up in the rotation for me yet.

These off-topic posts about 32-bit OS limitations are interesting, but irrelevant. OP already stated that he's using a 64-bit OS (Windows XP-64), and his RAM limitation is hardware related. Please read Intel 945G/945P datasheet, chapter 9 - Memory address map: http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/307502.pdf

The motherboard BIOS will set the TOLUD register (Top Of Low Usable DRAM) to somewhere between 3.0 and 3.5 GB (usually 3.25 GB). The actual limit will depend on the amount of RAM reserved for the PCI memory address range (from TOLUD to 3.5 GB). That's why graphics cards with more onboard RAM leave less available RAM for the user memory range.

If you want to have the maximum usable RAM and nothing more, you can upgrade to 3 GB. But if you want to benefit from dual-channel even if you won't be able to use all the installed memory, you can upgrade to 4 GB.

It all boils down to what sort of games does he play. If he doesn't play anything very intense and new then a GPU upgrade is all he needs. Don't go too crazy on this...any mid range GPU would be good enough. If the motherboard can take a core 2 then that's a good upgrade. Ram and O/S I think are good enough considering the rest of the system. More than that, consider a new build instead.

shspvr wrote:

Tetrium just so you know
Intel 9xx all PCIe
Intel 8xx where AGP

Cheers mate! I'm kinda a netburst newb hehe 😜

I did try out a P4 board for the very first time though! ...it's dead 😖

Tetrium wrote:

Cheers mate! I'm kinda a netburst newb hehe 😜

I did try out a P4 board for the very first time though! ...it's dead 😖

😳 going over to the dark side, tetrium mate?

sgt76 wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

Cheers mate! I'm kinda a netburst newb hehe 😜

I did try out a P4 board for the very first time though! ...it's dead 😖

😳 going over to the dark side, tetrium mate?

Lol 😉

Not really 🤣, I have 2 reasons to try a netburst rig.
1) I believe in gaining 1st hand experience, even if the chips are supposed to be sucky (such as the VIA C3, but thus also netburst).
2) I want a LAN rig especially for a friend of mine to use, because we joke that he's an Intel hoe 😜 😜 😜

Edit: Oh, and 3) I need a board that can use tons of little memory bars (like lots of 256MB modules) because I'm running out of 512 ones (and low on cache (edit: I mean cash 😁 Lol!) here, so I gotta make due with what I have 😉 ).

Tetrium wrote:

1) I believe in gaining 1st hand experience, even if the chips are supposed to be sucky (such as the VIA C3, but thus also netburst).
2) I want a LAN rig especially for a friend of mine to use, because we joke that he's an Intel hoe 😜 😜 😜

In that case may I suggest a Willamette + SD ram + Nvidia FX combo. 🤣

sgt76 wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

1) I believe in gaining 1st hand experience, even if the chips are supposed to be sucky (such as the VIA C3, but thus also netburst).
2) I want a LAN rig especially for a friend of mine to use, because we joke that he's an Intel hoe 😜 😜 😜

In that case may I suggest a Willamette + SD ram + Nvidia FX combo. 🤣

Yup! Just need the board now. Got enough RDRAM laying around which hopefully will work.
Already got the 2Ghz CPU waiting 😁