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I've got a family member who has an old computer (1GHz AMD Athlon with 768MB running XP). It mostly does what they need, except for streaming video. You Tube runs fairly well, but a lot of other video options don't work as well. Are there any simple options for punching up the performance of such a geriatric machine short of getting a new machine? Assuming they need a new machine, does anyone know of any good options for a machine with these relatively low requirements?

Updating the video card can help a lot, as the processor can offload decoding the streams to the video card. Adding more memory can help a lot, as the processor won't have to swap to the hard drive so much. The only other option is updating the hard drive to a very fast drive, which only helps if the processor is swapping a lot.

RAM and Video card are pretty much your easiest options.

Thanks for the info.

Are there any suggestions on what would be a reasonable video card to upgrade to?

RAM, Video Card, CPU.

In that order. Depends on the Motherboard, you could try to upgrade the CPU (it might be cheaper since it is older stuff) but I would upgrade RAM first to at least 2GB (really really cheap for DDR2 like 20$ per gig at Micro Center) then video card. You can get a decent card under 100$ for streaming. If it doesn't work, you can always return it

CPU is harder to return, so I usually upgrade that last. Changing out motherboard cost a bit more and you need a whole lot of stuff change depending on how you upgrade.

That is just my 2 cents.

eMachines from Best Buy. A 1GHz processor is not cutting it any longer.

Just solemnly say, "IT'S TIME TO LET GO..."

Chibibar said:

In that order. Depends on the Motherboard, you could try to upgrade the CPU (it might be cheaper since it is older stuff) but I would upgrade RAM first to at least 2GB (really really cheap for DDR2 like 20$ per gig at Micro Center) then video card. You can get a decent card under 100$ for streaming. If it doesn't work, you can always return it

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Surprise, it's likely going to be more expensive because it's that old, unless you get used from someone selling on eBay or Craigslist or Goodwill. The only stores selling those parts at this point are selling a decreasing supply of new parts to businesses that have need of keeping older computers working for some reason or another.

Second, adding more RAM won't help much. My last system was an Athlon XP 1.4Ghz running WinXP and it didn't see a lot of benefit from RAM beyond 512MB. The extra RAM is not going to help stream Youtube videos, because Flash is horribly inefficient at video playback.

A video-card might help, if your motherboard actually supports AGP, you can find a decent AGP card that will work with your system and that card supports hardware video acceleration. All three of those are iffy. If you've got onboard video right now, your motherboard may not have AGP at all, and even if it does it may not actually work (many motherboards from the time had trouble with conflicts between onboard video and discreet cards).

EDIT: It's going to be far more effective to buy a new system, and most likely it'll be cheaper as well. Certainly cheaper in the long run, because it's not going to be long before components of that relic are going to start failing from leaking capacitors and what-not.

EDIT 2: What are they wanting to use a computer for? One of the newer "nettops" might work for them. A dual-core Atom paired with Ion2 graphics would be surprisingly capable at most basic task, and really excell at most video playback.

I dunno about buying the new system part if some RAM and Video will get him where he needs to be.

If later on he wants to buy a new system, he can skip on the RAM and Video and just port them over.

Jiarn said:

I dunno about buying the new system part if some RAM and Video will get him where he needs to be.

If later on he wants to buy a new system, he can skip on the RAM and Video and just port them over.

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No, he can't reuse the parts. New systems don't use the AGP bus anymore, nor do they use the same type of RAM anymore.

Also, see my post for why upgrading may not be possible/affordable/beneficial.

What everyone else has said, you'd be better off buying a cheap emachine. Any parts you buy for that computer aren't going to work in any modern machine.

And to put it in perspective, my cell phone has better specs than that computer.

I'm assuming you are using Socket A. The fastest CPU for socket A was the 3200+ which runs at about 2.33GHz (if your MLB can push the FSB that high). For viewing Flash video under XP, a faster CPU is your best bet. That's going to change with Flash player 10.1 which will support GPU-based video decoding, but it requires GeForce 8xxx or ATI 4xxx or better, neither of which are really available for AGP-based systems. Windows XP can get along just fine with 2GB RAM.

Your biggest limitations are going to be the fact that your processor will only be single-core and your graphics will be limited by whatever is available for AGP (since I assume you are using AGP). It shouldn't be too hard to more than double your performance by upping your CPU speed, and a 2800+ (2.0GHz) "Barton" Athlon processor can be had for about $40 these days, but that would still be a system with only about 20-30% the speed of a modern 2GHz Core 2 Duo-based system.

tl;dr: Doubling your performance will probably cost a little under $200, and that would probably be the absolute most you could do with that system. If you need more than double your current performance, it's time for a new build.

--Patrick