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Upgrading a computer
The_Scarab
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I was thinking of upgrading my PC rather than build a new one. So I can save a lot of money on things I already have like optical drives, HDDs, cables and PSU and all that jazz.
So at the moment I have an Athlon 3200+, a Radeon X800pro and a really crappy mobo and 1 gig of ddr400 ram.
The idea is to upgrade each of these components quite a bit. But Ive been out of the PC hardware market for so long (this PC was built for Doom 3, yeah) that I dont know what I need.
So I was thinking of a dual core CPU, some high end nVidia GPU and some extra ram and an applicable mobo.
Does anyone know what I mean. As far as budget, Id like to spend about £600 max on the upgrade, thats around $1200 but hardware prices are a bit more over here so lets call the budget $1000 tops.
I mean, the problem isnt buying the stuff, or building the PC. its the hardware. I literally dont know what I need. I see all these r800s and 8800s and I do not know which are comparable. Back when I bought my x800 you kinda knew that was the top end at the time and I bought that. Same with my CPU, it was a case of the higher the number the better.
So Im basically looking to gut the PC and rebuild the heart of it.
New motherboard which can hold
a high level GPU and a new CPU, preferably something ultra fast. Some extra RAM maybe and a PSU to fuel this thing.
Any help would be appreciated. As I say, its less a case of 'list me the things I need to buy' its a case of I dont know what components are comparable anymore. I dont know the level of hardware I need. I cant wrap my head around the different names of the components and what to buy. Im pretty tech savvy but when you have a PC and dont buy new components for about 3-4 years you just never keep up with the changing hardware leaderboard as it were.
So at the moment I have an Athlon 3200+, a Radeon X800pro and a really crappy mobo and 1 gig of ddr400 ram.
The idea is to upgrade each of these components quite a bit. But Ive been out of the PC hardware market for so long (this PC was built for Doom 3, yeah) that I dont know what I need.
So I was thinking of a dual core CPU, some high end nVidia GPU and some extra ram and an applicable mobo.
Does anyone know what I mean. As far as budget, Id like to spend about £600 max on the upgrade, thats around $1200 but hardware prices are a bit more over here so lets call the budget $1000 tops.
I mean, the problem isnt buying the stuff, or building the PC. its the hardware. I literally dont know what I need. I see all these r800s and 8800s and I do not know which are comparable. Back when I bought my x800 you kinda knew that was the top end at the time and I bought that. Same with my CPU, it was a case of the higher the number the better.
So Im basically looking to gut the PC and rebuild the heart of it.
New motherboard which can hold
a high level GPU and a new CPU, preferably something ultra fast. Some extra RAM maybe and a PSU to fuel this thing.
Any help would be appreciated. As I say, its less a case of 'list me the things I need to buy' its a case of I dont know what components are comparable anymore. I dont know the level of hardware I need. I cant wrap my head around the different names of the components and what to buy. Im pretty tech savvy but when you have a PC and dont buy new components for about 3-4 years you just never keep up with the changing hardware leaderboard as it were.
The_Scarab on
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Corsair Memory DDR2 1GB 240DIMM PC5300 UNBUFFERED CL5 £23.73
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ AM2 3.0GHz £146.86
Asustek AM2 Via K8T890 ATX Audio Lan Dual DDR2 SATA £40.50
EVGA GeForce 8800GTS 320MB GDDR3 PCIE DUAL DVI HDTV £214.47
From Dabs, with a buy now pay March 2008. (Awesome!) Now I'm sure people will come on and say you can buy better, and I'm sure they're right, but I don't think I'll go too far wrong with this.
So cheap though, and cause I dont know anything about those components Im curious how bleeding edge that setup is. I mean, its just a bunch of numerics to me. I guess Im so backward the only way I can judge performance is price. But that sounds like such a good deal I might go for it.
The graphics is where I probably skimped a little. If you've got the cash go for an 8800gtx. Those are the real high end, and there isn't anything better on market right now, but you'd be looking at closer to £400 for one of those bad boys.
Ram is so cheap at the moment, that you might want to spend a bit more and get a faster set, or probably more productively, another gig.
After spending the afternoon looking around, that deal you have right there is just so good Im going to have to buy that exact PC. H/A comes through in spades.
I think Ill get the same GPU and mobo and CPU but get more RAM. My old ram is, well, shitsticks, so Ill just get 2gig instead of 1.
All in all comes to a nice healthy £450 approx which is, well, amazing value.
Its supposed to arrive today, but fucking Amtrak are shit. Don't bother paying for the next day delivery. I've had more luck getting stuff quickly with just their standard delivery.
Yeah, this is actually pretty good. Throw one more gig on here, and other than the motherboard(I dont know enough about MBs to suggest), its very nice, and I'm not seeing any major bottlenecks.
3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118
I don't know much about hardware... I bought a Dell XPS Gen 4 (Pentium 4) and got an upgrade on the Nvidia graphics card when I bought it back in 2005. Obviously there are better cards out there now, but I'm not sure what my computer could handle. How do I tell?
Well, 'handle' is a strange word here. If it has a PCI x16 slot on the motherboard, you can put in pretty much any new card. Being able to run it depends on how good your power supply is, but if its 500 or more, you should be ok.
However, don't get some awesome video card if your other specs aren't good. Otherwise, the graphics card will be bottlenecked, and the upgrade fairly pointless.
Best way to get answers is to let us know what your computer has currently. dxdiag for that information.
3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118