help w/ new comp i built

[kd9791]

I'm in over my head, i know. I have a Gigabyte motherboard (not my idea, bad board) and AMD athalon 64X2 3800 (soc 939). My buddy has an old comp that shows 3.4 GHz, and my brand new, relativly expensive comp is showing 2.1 GHz. I'm wondeing if the chip & board are making it slow, or if me and my buddy are both wrong. I assumed however, that the CPU would run better, and the whole computer is kinda... ordinary. I am rumming a 512 mb vid card, and i wasn't expecting the computer to fly, but are their any internal changes that i can do to get my computer running better? I have searched for weeks and can't find a 'computers for dummies' anywere. I want to eventually be on top of the computing industry, and am having a tough time jumping in.

[glc]

The X2 3800+ does in fact run at 2.0 GHz actual clock speed. You are fine.

The best way to get your computer running better is look at what software is loading at startup and running in the background. This will have a much larger effect than any tweaks you do to the hardware. How much system ram do you have?

[Cricket]

Please post the complete system specs for this computer. List all the parts by brand and model including the power supply. And which OS are you using?

Cricket

[kd9791]

I have a NZXT Lexa blck/slvr case w/ 500 watt PSU, K8N5IPVM9-RH gigabyte i-dna MB, AMD athalon 64 X2 3800 CPU (939), seagate 160gb eide HD 7200/8mb/ATA 100, EVGA GeForce 7900 GTX 512mb PCI-E vid card, 1 soon to be 2 ultra 1024 pc3200 DDR 400htz RAM..... 52x CDRW liteon... Running off of WIN XP office.

[glc]

Hmm - Tiger Direct saw you coming.

[kd9791]

Its so true it hurts. I did this w/ a couple of buddies that built comps about 4-5 years ago and they were kinda out of the loop. I then, after i bought everything, learned a lot more about it. I had to get a new MB because tigdirect said mine was compatible, but it really wasn't. I have come to terms that newegg is te place to go. Or is there better still? Anyway, I just want to know that my comp is going to last me long enough until i upgrade/revamp in about a year or two.

[flanzig1]

It should last you til your next build. I would probably replace the PSU with a known good brand.

[kd9791]

Yeah, when i found out about neweggs feedbak i looked up all my hardware and figured that i will need a new PSU and motherboard. I guess my MB only worked b/c of the Vid card i bought.