Desktop upgrade advice

[Deaks]

Oh, knowledgeable sages of BCF, I come to you for advice.

I would like to upgrade my old desktop. However due to its age (about 3 years) and the amount of things that I could and probably should upgrade, I'm wondering if it is financially viable. I would only really want to spend approx £300-£400.

Current specs are;

HP a6355

AMD Phenom X4 9500 2.2GHz Quad core

3GB DDR2 RAM

NVIDIA GeForce 8500GT

Motherboard: M2N68-LA (Narra3) Asus, NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 chipset

*Not sure what other info you require.

Few questions;

a) Is it worth upgrading the individual components or should I not bother and start afresh?

b) I believe I read previously that it is not physically possible to swap DDR2 and DDR3 RAM. Therefore is it worth dumping more DDR2 RAM in my machine?

c) If you think it is worth doing, what upgrades would you suggest within my budget (£300-£400)?

Thanks for your advice.
____________________
Suzuki SV650S '04 (09/08-02/11), Triumph Tiger 1050 '07 (02/11 - current).

Live to Ride. Ride to Feel Alive.

[bazza]

Start with a new spell checker.
____________________
"That's it. You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to clown college."
'98 Ducati 750SS, '08 Suzuki GSX650F ©2004-2014, Bazza's Harmless Banter

[Deaks]

Not sure I can afford one
____________________
Suzuki SV650S '04 (09/08-02/11), Triumph Tiger 1050 '07 (02/11 - current).

Live to Ride. Ride to Feel Alive.

[_Troy_]

I'm soon to be building my own system, a thread a few down from here details all of it.

Processor: Intel i5 2500K
Motherboard: Asus PZ68-VLX
Memory: 8GB in 2 x 4GB sticks
Hard Drive: 500GB
Optical Drive: DVD RW
Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce GT520 1GB
Internet: Wireless 300mb/s card
Case: EZCool Mesh ATX
PSU: 500w PSU

All of this will cost around £420, and for what I need will be super fast. Just an idea of what you can build for your budget if you were to start frsh
____________________
Current bike: ZX6R J1
Previous bikes: CLR 125 | GS500 | ZX6R G2 | SV650

[Jynister]

Start fresh. Theres plenty you could choose to upgrade but if you can build something better within your budget, go for it. The system Troy posted up is pretty solid, though I'd personally be tempted to go for a 600w power supply.

Concerning RAM your right. DDR3 won't go into DDR2 slots. You could throw more memory at it but it depends on whether your OS is 32 or 64bit.

32bit systems top out at 4Gb. So you could double your RAM and it wouldn't be getting used anyways, because the OS won't support it. 64bit will handle up to 64Gb if I remember correctly. To find out just check your system info, and it'll tell you if its either or.

[orac]

maplin had some amd fusion bundle that you can pick up for less than 200. alot of thise will depend what else you have. semi decent PSU, hdds and odds can be re-used with a clean OS install along with the case

or
https://www.maplin.co.uk/quad-core-athlonii-x4-asus-hd6670-1gb-graphics-and-board-bundle--4gb-memory-621350

chuck that in with a new OS on your drive

or
https://www.maplin.co.uk/asus-amd-apu-motherboard-kit--4gb-ddr3-memory-612772

there is loads out there you just gotta shop around and figure out what you need, what you can recycle depending on the demands your gonna put on the system
____________________
Current rides - 2016 Triumph Street Triple Rx, 1994 Suzuki Bandit 400 VM, TGB 204 Classic 125cc
"with nothing left to lose, there is everything to gain. It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog"

[Alpha-9]

You want a DDR3 compatible motherboard to make it more futureproof.

DDR2 is old now

Highly recommend https://www.novatech.co.uk/

Orac's bundles are not bad
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Fzr-600 1999

[el_oso]

what are you actually going to be using this system for?
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Duke 390
Previous: '05 XR125L | '96 XJ600S Diversion |'05 Suzuki GSXR1000 | '05 Honda CBR125-R | '97 YZF 600R Thundercat | '11 Honda CBR250
Car: Jeep Wrangler 4.0L

[andym]

I know a lot of people will disagree with this here, but with that kind of budget I would go with something like this:

And please don't class it as spam, as I'm just looking on one site, there could be alternatives out there, but I'm going by my current system.

Motherboard £40
Quad Core CPU 3.2Ghz £98
1Gb DDR5 graphics card £98
2x2gb DDR 3 1600Mhz £22 (I did get Kingston DDR3 1333Mhz at £22 for 4gb, but can't find it now).
750W PSU £37
PC gaming case £23

Depending if you go down the upgrade route then you will be able to use your old hard drive(s), and when you upgrade Windows will probably give some kind of warning, as long as you have a legal copy it just needs to re-register or something (although in saying that, I more or less replaced my whole system and it didn't say anything).

Now the items listed above are for a budget end gaming machine, the last system I built like that lasted over 5 years and only had to be replaced after I plugged in an external drive and the power supply and motherboard blew.

[Deaks]

[Alpha-9]

[andym]

[Rob W]

I'd go for a 560 Ti over the 550 if your gaming. I've got the ASUS 1GB Direct CUII card, and it really is the dogs dangly bits. Worth spending a bit extra in my opinion.
____________________
TS50 > Senda 125 > ZXR400 > CB-1 > GSX-R1000 > Bandit 600 > ZXR750 H1 > GSX-R750 SRAD > '98 Fireblade > T595 Daytona > Hornet 900 > '04 Fireblade > GSX-S1000F (x2) > '23 XSR900

[el_oso]

i really wouldn't be buying a new system now. new intel processors due out soon. i'd hold off until then.
what i probably would upgrade now would be the GPU. as long as you have a pci-express you're good to go. a recent GPU should make the system far faster than upgrading a processor. have a benchmark tool running and see what components are being used up the most.

edit: i would also say that 16GB of RAM is overkill. crysis 2 and BF3 barely use 3GB. 8Gb should be more than enough. spend the extra on something like the 550ti
____________________
Duke 390
Previous: '05 XR125L | '96 XJ600S Diversion |'05 Suzuki GSXR1000 | '05 Honda CBR125-R | '97 YZF 600R Thundercat | '11 Honda CBR250
Car: Jeep Wrangler 4.0L

[Deaks]

[el_oso]

nope. there should be ivy bridge processors due out at the end of the month/next month or so. i believe they will be using the same lga 1155 socket, but they will be updating the chipsets.

a new graphics card should fit. just check that your board has a pci-express slot and your power supply has a 6pin power plug
____________________
Duke 390
Previous: '05 XR125L | '96 XJ600S Diversion |'05 Suzuki GSXR1000 | '05 Honda CBR125-R | '97 YZF 600R Thundercat | '11 Honda CBR250
Car: Jeep Wrangler 4.0L

[cagiva gezzer]

[el_oso]

https://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp
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Duke 390
Previous: '05 XR125L | '96 XJ600S Diversion |'05 Suzuki GSXR1000 | '05 Honda CBR125-R | '97 YZF 600R Thundercat | '11 Honda CBR250
Car: Jeep Wrangler 4.0L

[Deaks]

Ah, cool.

So is it worth me getting a new graphics card and fitting it to my current desktop now (making sure it will fit first), then getting the rest of the components when I see an Ivy Bridge processor I want/can afford?



Also, on a different note, what about wiring? Do the components come with the relevant wiring? Can I use some of my existing wiring? Do I have to buy new stuff?
____________________
Suzuki SV650S '04 (09/08-02/11), Triumph Tiger 1050 '07 (02/11 - current).

Live to Ride. Ride to Feel Alive.

[el_oso]

personally that would be the route i would take. get a GPU now and upgrade other things later. depending on the power output of your PSU you may need to upgrade that along with your graphics card. GPU's take a lot of power. so much so that they can't draw all of it from the motherboard, therefore they have a separate 6pin plug from the PSU. either open up your current machine and have a look, or throw a couple of pics on here

just had a look at the ivy bridge lineup. expected to have 5-10% performance increase for number crunching, upto +50% inbuilt graphics performance, upto 50% less power consumption
____________________
Duke 390
Previous: '05 XR125L | '96 XJ600S Diversion |'05 Suzuki GSXR1000 | '05 Honda CBR125-R | '97 YZF 600R Thundercat | '11 Honda CBR250
Car: Jeep Wrangler 4.0L

[Deaks]

Im thinking I will probably need to upgrade the PSU. The current one is only rated to 300W.
How can I find out how much power the new graphics card will draw?
This is the graphics card (I think thats the right one) but I cant find out specifically how much power is draws.


This is whats in the desktop already. Not sure which is the power wire for the graphics card. The only wire not going into the long connector (red arrow*) is the yellow/black wire (blue arrow*), but that still goes into the motherboard. The small black/white wire goes into the graphics card, but also from the motherboard

https://i770.photobucket.com/albums/xx344/T_Deaks/20120420_221832.jpg

*sorry for the really thin arrows!

** I know, its really dusty!
____________________
Suzuki SV650S '04 (09/08-02/11), Triumph Tiger 1050 '07 (02/11 - current).

Live to Ride. Ride to Feel Alive.

[Asimo]

Your power supply doesn't have the pci-e power connector and you'll probably have to buy a new psu anyways. 300W is no where near enough for a modern gaming rig, you'll need it for your new build later anyways. Don't skimp on the psu either, you'll end up paying for it somewhere down the line when it blows up.

[Deaks]

As for a psu, how about somthing like this?
Or is that a bit of overkill?

Can you get too powerful a psu? Is it worth getting something that large with scope to add more stuff?
____________________
Suzuki SV650S '04 (09/08-02/11), Triumph Tiger 1050 '07 (02/11 - current).

Live to Ride. Ride to Feel Alive.

[orac]

that yellow and black wire is the CPU power supply.. as for that PSU, i would spend more and good something like corsiar. the other downside is it has 4 12v rails instead of a single

somthing like this will do you better - never skimp ona psu
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-037-CS&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1084
also you can have as bigger PSU as you like but unless you are going to go multi card and/or overclock then that PSU i linked will be more than enough

you didnt look hard enough for power regirement for that card either
https://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-560ti/specifications
____________________
Current rides - 2016 Triumph Street Triple Rx, 1994 Suzuki Bandit 400 VM, TGB 204 Classic 125cc
"with nothing left to lose, there is everything to gain. It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog"

[el_oso]

the more powerful the PSU the more expensive it is. unless you start going super crazy and drop some serious dough on high end components, i think around 750W/800W would be all you need. including some room for future upgrade. I would stick to the big brands (corsair/OCZ etc) and look for something that comes with a nice long warranty. either something like the corsair posted earlier or one of these
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-057-OC&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1098
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-060-OC&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1098
(probably not the cheapest place)
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Duke 390
Previous: '05 XR125L | '96 XJ600S Diversion |'05 Suzuki GSXR1000 | '05 Honda CBR125-R | '97 YZF 600R Thundercat | '11 Honda CBR250
Car: Jeep Wrangler 4.0L