Hey everyone,

I finally made the promised upgrade. I had to delay because of unplanned expenses.

Anyways, I made a minor upgrade from my old P4. Here are the specs:

Intel Pentium Dual Core E5300 @ 3.6 GHz w/ Arctic Cooler Freezer 7
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 285
1 X 2 GB OCZ GOLD DDRII - 800 MHz
1 X Western Digital GP SATA II 1TB
OCZ GameXstream 850W

I tested GTA 4...runs really bad. I had to turn down the graphice to Medium to have playable
FPS. I know the dual core is causing the slow down and I also think that 2GB of ram is not enough.

I ran Assassin's Creed. The game is really great. NO problems at all.

I am running the CPU @ 3.6 GHz (300 x 12). Vcore is set to AUTO but it reads between 1.37 and 1.39
in windows. I try to keep my ram running @ 800. I am not sure how much I can push it.

I tried to run it above 3.6 and it was not stable at all. I can go into windows but when
I load the system, it would crash.

I am satisfied with the overclock, but I would prefer to clock it @ 4GHz.
Is my RAM limiting me? Any suggestions are welcome.

thanx in advance

i'd say your ram is probably limiting your performance a bit, 4GB is pretty much the new standard. EDIT: Especially since it's just one stick.

Well for a start GTA4 will bring more powerfull systems to a stutter so dont worry about it. You are not happy with 3.6Ghz on that chip.....I think 4Ghz is pushing it unless you have extra cooling all over the case etc.

You have to twinkle GTAIV's settings cause from everything I've read the game is either badly ported or the settings values go way too high. Customize each setting individually and measure your frames each time.

Here's an nice tweakguide for the game:

http://www.overclock.net/pc-games/442325-gta-4-tweak-guide.html

Yeah a second stick of 2gb DDR2 800 will really help.Check my profile.My GF's rig runs it pretty well.With a X1900GT and a E8200@3.2ghz

Sean, Plug, Meats, Mothow, thank you for your replies.

I am happy with the 3.6 clock. It is great. The computer feels like it is flying. I can even emulate
PS2 games...or at least some of them. I just thought 4 GHz will look better...and who would say
no to a 400 MHz increase

I will see what I could do with the performance guide that Meats provided. I hope it will help.
I think the game is limited heavily by the CPU. The video card max temps were 58 C or so.
Playing Assassins Creed, it went over 80 C.
I really like GTA 4 (Driving is not as good as SA, though). Will let you know.

I am not sure about adding another memory stick. Installing a 2 GB will give me only
half of it....you know...I already have 2 GB + 1 GB for the video card.

Thanks for the help. see you around