Cheap Upgrade Options

Vic Vinegar

Hi people, i'm looking to upgrade our internet pc to something less stone-age. It currently has a socket 478 mobo with a 2600Mhz celeron 128kb L2 cache and a gig of pc2700 ram. We'd be looking to upgrade the mobo/cpu/ram for as low a price as possible. It's not used for gaming too much other than the sims 2 occasionally, it's on virtually 24/7. Anyone recommend a decent performance bundle for a cheap price? it'll be much appreciated, thanks

8T8

This AMD upgrade kit should be more than sufficient.

AMD Sempron 3600+ CPU
2GB of RAM
Motherboard with integrated graphics/audio/networking and slot for graphics card if need be.

Your existing case and power supply should not a problem accommodating that.

However your old graphics card wont work & the integrated graphics really isn't suitable for games (not sure about the Sims may squeeze by) so if you want something that will do the job this 7600GS will fit the bill.

Vic Vinegar

Hmm, thanks but what if i went for a AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.2GHz Socket AM2 1MB instead. It's about 30 euro more but i reckon the performance increase must be worth it right?

L31mr0d

well 8T8 has given you what you requested, the cheapest possible upgrade. If it is too cheap, lol, then we'd need a budget. The X2 4200+ would be a lot better performance wise, but then the X2 4600+ would be better again. Without a defined budget its very hard to recommend something to fit your needs.

Vic Vinegar

Yeah i see what you mean! i'd wanna stick to a limit of 200 notes, maybe pushed up a max of 20 at a push.

8T8

Well I think given the tasks mentioned the sempron bundle is worth going for because if it's just basic desktop usage like office/internet etc then you don't really need a very powerful CPU for that.

Plus the sempron bundle comes with a socket AM2 motherboard so you can always upgrade it to an Athlon CPU later if need be.

Also get a 7300GS instead of the 7600GS and you stay around the 220 mark in total and should nave no problems with games like the sims.

Vic Vinegar

Thanks for the continued support 8T8. I was browsing komplett again, mixing and matching some combinations.

What do you think of these for an upgrade:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ 2.1GHz Socket AM2 1MB, BOXED w/fan

Gigabyte GA-MA69VM-S2, AMD 690V+SB600, Socket-AM2, m-ATX, DDR2, PCI-Ex16

Crucial DDR2 PC5300 1024MB CL5 Kit w/two matched DDR2 PC5300 512MB CL5

Do you foresee any problems with these 3 working in conjunction?

All of these will cost 180 inc delivery! i know it's overkill for what it'll be used for but we might wanna use it for more processor hungry things in the future, it can't help to be prepared

Thanks

8T8

No problems with any of those should be fine.

Vic Vinegar

Good stuff, thanks for your time.