I'm just learning how to build comps. I want to upgrade my system to make it far superior in term of gaming, like for FFXIV which requires high performance rigs. I understand a little bit about what I need to upgrade on my weak Dell Insprion 530with the Celeron 2.20 GHz CPU, 2G of Ram. Only thing I did to it was added the Geforce 9400 graphics card. I've heard there are now 6 core AMD processors which I would like to have, but I think a quad core would do nicely. I know I need a AMD or AM3 motherboard if I go with a Phenom. My mobo supports up a intel i5 which is 4x core also I believe. My question is and the thing I do not understand is the term "bottleneck" I want or need more Ram would like to get up to 8g total. How does that work and is that what bottleneck mean? If you too much info running out of too small of a memory. I just decided to learn about comps about a week ago and this is about all I don't get. Please help! Any suggestions you have would also help me out. Thank you

I don't think a mobo with a Celeron would support any i5. And not all i5 are quads.

A bottleneck is a [lace where things slow down. Think of a three lane road that narrows to two lanes. Traffic moves more slowly as the road narrows. In terms of computers you can have the fastest processor available, but if you have a slow Internet connection it will cause things to slow down as it goes through that bottleneck.

Yea I understood that part of it and I know what bottleneck meant in that regard but thanks for the clarification. So it has to do with internet connectivity? Not RAM see I was thinking that the RAM ( like a 2G memory stick) would be the lanes the more Gigs the more lanes if 1 G = 1 lane and each core needed at least 1 lane but performed better with a passing lane so faster traffic could pass. Which my single core crappy Celeron does with 2G. I was theorizing then if I upgraded to a 4xcore ( which I planned on changing mobo anyway, the specs I read for it said it handled up to a i5) I would then need at least 8G ram so either two 4G ones and replace the one in now or three 2G. Thing is I don't want to buy stuff that don't fit I know that the Intel mobo's are mostly ATX and then there is AMD and AM3 for the Phenoms( which I'll probably buy since its mainly a gaming rig). SO am I kind of right, or way out in left field? I'm real interested in buying parts and building a rig that out does them all. Maybe even start with a full size tower just to overload it with power. In the words of Tim the Tool man Taylor RAH AH OH OH!! Also does it matter on the tower case? Will that make some parts not fit or are they all universal and just depends on the mobo? If you could yourself build the most powerful rig, no limits on cost what would you build, bud? Thanks for the fast reply too.

TBH, you'd be better off starting over.
Celeron boards are low end business focused machines and as such not upgradable, certainly not to what you had in mind.

I haven't a clue what you mean by lanes? I've never heard that with respect to RAM before. The reason more RAM can speed up your machine is that whatever you are currently working on is loaded into RAM. RAM provides the fastest I/O between the processor. So if the program is calling for a piece of data and its currently in RAM, then retrieving that data will be fast. If it has to pull from the hard drive, that will slow it down. If it has to pull from a different storage that can slow it down even more.

Bottlenecks can occur in various places, not just the Internet connection.