Upgrading a computer system

In this task, i will change two components from the specification below and describe how they would better the system for editing images.


System specification
Intel Pentium D 'Dual Core X2' CPU (5.3 Ghz)
VIA Chipset 1066 Mhz Motherboard - slots available: AGP8x (1), PCI (3), RAM (2); ports available: LAN (1), USB (6)
512 MB RAM
80 GB HDD (SATA300)
18X DVD+/-RW Dual Layer & Dual Format
onboard UniChrome PRO 3D Graphics with 64 MB shared memory
mouse and keyboard
15" flat screen
cheap inkjet printer

The first thing that i would change would be onboard the UniChrome PRO 3D Graphics with 64 MB shared memory. This graphics component isn't very good at all. One of the main reasons for this not being a good card would be the fact that it is integrated and uses shared ram. Therefore it uses the system memory to work properly, leaving the user with less RAM.

I would replace this with a XFX GeForce 7900 GS 512MB. I've tried to keep the card to something reasonable to make sure the PSU has enough power to run the card. This would improve the performance of the computer quite a lot. Firstly, there would be nothing taking up the system ram anymore, leaving the user with a lot more to play with. It would also help with processing any image changes quicker, and do it more effiently. Overall, this change would help the computer a considerable amount.

The cost of this would be around £89.00


A second change i would make would be the ram. I would take out the 512 MB RAM and put in two 1GB sticks of DDR2. Obviously, after doing this the change would be massive. Loading times would be seriously reduced and so would editing times. More applications would be able to be run at once, and more than one document could be edited at one time.

The cost of this would be around £40-50