New life into a S754 setup...

[NightshadowUK]

So we're trying to force new life into a mates S754 Sempron system as he just upgraded his graphics card and I'm thinking his CPU may be hindering it.

Specs are currently:
AMD Sempron 3100+ @ 2.2GHz
Asus K8N4-E Deluxe
256MB Sapphire X1950Pro
3 x 512MB Corsair PC3200 VS @ 2.5-3-3-7

Now so far I've come up with getting a Sempron 3400+ (that's £35 at Dabs) so we'd get a 2.55GHz CPU using the same BIOS settings.

A new cooler is an option too if anyone's got any suggestions?

Next up I'm thinking 2GB RAM would be nice but as the motherboard only has 3 DIMMs another 512MB stick isn't an option. So, I'm thinking drop one stick and add a 1GB in it's place. Only problem is Corsair VS only has CAS3 1GB modules and I'd like to keep the timings as they are (2.5-3-3-7) so I found a nice Kingmax stick (£60 at Dabs) that does just that, but I'm not sure if mixing brands would cause problems?

Thanks as always!

[this_is_gav]

A slightly faster CPU's not going to make much, if any difference to be honest. You're looking at maybe 2-5fps in games as an absolute max.

Equally, going from 1.5GB to 2GB (on a single-channel system) really isn't worth it.

None of it strikes as value, let alone good value. Sorry to say, but in my opinion, if he wants better, he's going to have to pay for a non-budget setup (as in a true Athlon64 or greater).

[NightshadowUK]

I follow what you're saying here but from what I understand Semprons are quite awesome even when compared to the higher L2 caches of the S754 A64 chips because they overclock so very well.

As for the memory, I know dual channel makes very little real world difference and that 2GB seems to be the magic amount for lifting stutter in games like BF2 / BF2142, which is why I wanted to up to it.

EDIT: Come to think of it a S939 chip and board wouldn't cost that much more cos we could just buy another 512MB stick... interesting...