Upgrading an old PC

Alanthora

Hey guys,

So I've been reading some of your post about upgrading. But unfortunately I don't have £1000 to buy a new PC.
Ages ago I bought myself a console because quite frankly I didn't have the money that was needed to run the games.
So now i have this PC in my house, and I would like to know if I could make it out into some decent gaming pc. I don't expect anything WOOOOW.
Just so I can enjoy gaming to a decent degree. Not on low setting basically. Which is what I have my laptop for at the moment.

The spec I know of in the PC are:
ASUS P5Q PRO motherboard
Intel Core2 Duo E6750 @ 2.66GHz processor
NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT 512Mb g-card
2GB DDR2 Ram
450W Power Supply

Any suggestion??

yawhat!

Your looking at 400 for a low end gaming PC, 650 for a good gaming PC

robcon

In an ideal world yes it would be time to upgrade the whole system but as that is not an option here let's try and work with what the op has.
What games would you like to be able to play Alan and at what resolution?
What is the make/model of your PSU?
The obvious weakness is your graphics card. That could easily be replaced with something more modern and that alone would make a huge difference. A touch more ram and a v cheap quad core cpu upgrade and you would be flying. You do have options!

TerrorFirmer

Replace E6750 with Q6600 or similar - about 50. Replace 8500GT with R7 260 - around 110. More ram - 20. So for about €180 you'd have an OK machine for most modern games. Would really have to overclock the CPU though so maybe add another 20 for a cpu cooler if the PC doesn't already have a decent one. Would be better though to set aside €4-500 for a new PC and sell that one for whatever you can get, €100-150 ish or so.

Alanthora

http://www.web-systems.co.uk/?page=Products&gid=12

This sounds great so far, the make and model of the PSU are Right-tec p4-450W. I bought it really cheaply when my old one died.
Sounds awesome so far

Now, this is my local store that I know sells things quite cheap.
Could you guys have a look at this list and tell me the cheapest graphics card I could get that would do the job

Serephucus

You'll need a new PSU as well so.

What sort of money have you got to throw at this?

Alanthora

Wow 450w won't do?
There used to be much smaller in there, but when it died I asked a guy in a shop for a new one that could handle few upgrades... ha

Well, I would like to buy it piece by piece. Maybe start with a g-card then some ram and then the cpu.

Serephucus

It's not just about wattage. A no-name brand PSU will usually provide very poor amperage to the 12V rail, which is what powers pretty much everything in your system, and is particularly noticeable in that your graphics card will start artefacting or throttling from lack of power.

A good 450W unit will post most single-GPU systems without a problem however.

Alanthora

Right, it'll have to do for the time being. I think I'll buy a graphics card to start with and then go from there. I want to be able to use it as quickly as I can

http://web-systems.co.uk/?page=Products&gid=12

This is my local parts store, any idea which card I could buy. Something not too expensive but that'll work good

Thanks,

yawhat!

Processor - Xeon

GPU - 7750 or 7770

Ram - 2*2GB

Alanthora

yawhat! wrote: »

Processor - Xeon

GPU - 7750 or 7770

Ram - 2*2GB

Description of this ram says
"THIS IS SERVER MEMORY, NOT TO BE USED IN DESKTOPS"
Any idea what that means?

yawhat!

Alanthora wrote: »

Description of this ram says
"THIS IS SERVER MEMORY, NOT TO BE USED IN DESKTOPS"
Any idea what that means?

Not sure actually, someone else might have more insight! Theres other desktop DDr2 memory on ebay and adverts.ie

marco_polo

Alanthora wrote: »

Description of this ram says
"THIS IS SERVER MEMORY, NOT TO BE USED IN DESKTOPS"
Any idea what that means?

It Registered ECC RAM which is not compatible with most consumer mainboards.

TerrorFirmer

That CPU also won't work its S771.

SterlingArcher

Alanthora wrote: »

Description of this ram says
"THIS IS SERVER MEMORY, NOT TO BE USED IN DESKTOPS"
Any idea what that means?

It is ecc ram used in servers, and needs a special expensive motherboard to use it.

Edit didn't see next page my bad.

robcon

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

That CPU also won't work its S771.

Have a xeon x5450 in my p35 ds3r that I'm typing this on!!

Alan a xeon an extra 2gigs of ram and a gfx card like a 7770 or whatever your pocket/psu will allow and you'll be playing anything you want!

robcon

Alanthora wrote: »

the make and model of the PSU are Right-tec p4-450W. I bought it really cheaply when my old one died.

Just noticed your psu.
As was said that psu needs to go too actually. Psu is not something you scrimp on.