PC upgrade

[Ken Veal]

I want to upgrade to the fastest AMD processor and what ever I need to accommodate it. Can anyone recommend or advise me on what that is and what I will need to do this please.I am guessing I will need a new motherboard. I am also concerned if this will render any of the apps , programs etc I have un useable or does that only apply if I change from XP? Since moving from VS11+ to X5pro ultimate, I am finding the prog takes longer to start up and work and I think its time to upgrade anyway .
My present spec is below





Custom built desktop PC
Operating system
Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3 (build 2600)

Processor
2.20 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core
256 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (2 total)
Not hyper-threaded

Main Circuit Board
Board: 939NF6G-VSTA
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. P1.20 01/18/2007

Memory Modules
3072 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory
Slot 'DIMM0' has 1024 MB
Slot 'DIMM1' has 1024 MB
Slot 'DIMM2' has 1024 MB
Slot 'DIMM3' has 1024 MB (there are 4 slots, each one has a module installed)

Local Drive Volumes
C: (NTFS on drive 0) 160.03 GB 104.53 GB free
G: (FAT32 on drive 1) 122.87 GB 67.19 GB free (Media drive)
Display
ATI Radeon HD 4650 [Display adapter]
AOC LM720 [Monitor] (17.1"vis, s/n T7KB28AG09104, August 2002)

Multimedia
ATI Function Driver for High Definition Audio - ATI AA01 Creative Game Port
Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS (WDM)

[df]

Looked up your board on http://www.asrock.com/MB/overview.asp?M ... 9NF6G-VSTA and it looks like you're maxed out for RAM at 4gb. I'd say that's your biggest limiting factor at this point. The board is 64 bit capable, but there wouldn't be much point to it if you can't use more than 4gb. I don't know enough about current hardware to offer more advice, but there are some very helpful people at http://forums.majorgeeks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=22 who can help. Many either still use XP or are very familiar with it.

One thing I use occasionally is http://www.majorgeeks.com/Iobit_Game_Booster_d5952.html Iobit Game Booster. It's made for games, but you can use it with any program. It doesn't actually boost your program, but actually turns off other processes running in the background. I also defrag whatever program itself that I want better startup time from and that can sometimes be a real improvement.