Upgrading old PC, new and old parts.

[Clawtooth]

Hello there. Seeing as it was Christmas yesterday, I got my hands on a wee bit of cash. Recently, although it's been fine for about 6 years, I've been noticing that my old CPU can't really keep up with modern games all that well. It's consistently at between 80 and 100 degrees in heat according to internal temp, even after cleaning out the fan and heatsink with compressed air, and I don't even have it overclocked.

I've been thinking about upgrading my PC for a while now, and for a few months I've been looking at some parts on OCUK, but I don't know how well they will work together with the older parts which I already have and wish to keep.

The idea is that I keep my GFX Card and Hard-drives, and upgrade everything else.

For around about £250.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to my PC at the moment, due to being home from uni from the holidays and it being left in halls (the trials of a struggling humanities student, I know). I normally run a quick Dxdiag to check that stuff, though I should really have it saved elsewhere.

I do know that the CPU I wish to replace is one of the the AMD Athlon dual core processors from a few years back, and my Graphics card is ATI/AMD.

In any case, the parts I've looked at from OCUK are as follows.

Motherboard, CPU and RAM.
Case

Now in terms of optical drives, I'm not sure if I want to go for a BD-Rom/DVD-rom, or if I want an DVD-RW drive. I suppose it might be handy to be able to write DVDs since I have a PS3 for Blu-ray watching, and computer disks (though I normally buy things on steam anyway) don't seem to be making the jump any time soon. However, I'm not sure on that front, but from what browsing I've done, both options will end up costing roughly the same amount.

The other thing is PSUs. I'm not sure what wattage to go for, though I think 500 will be enough. There are two corsair ones which I like the price and look of, for the same price. However one is modular and one is not. I'm unsure which I want to go for, so advice on these:

Modular
Non-modular

Would be appreciated.

There are some other things I would like to ask too.

Exactly how much trouble am I liable to be in if I try to use old hard drives with a new CPU? There seems to be some debate about whether it's a viable thing to do. Apparently as long as I'm not going from IDE to SATA I shouldn't have an issue - and both my HDDs are SATA (my optical drive is IDE which is why I'm replacing it). The version of Windows 7 I run is not OEM so there's no issue there.

In addition, I'm nervous about whether these parts will all work together, since I only have very limited experience building PCs - the current one I have was a home build with help from my father four and a half years ago.

Any and all help and suggestions would be appreciated, and as soon as ma be I will get the details of the parts which I wish to keep.

 

[Doomedspeed]

Firstly Welcome,

May i ask what your PC is going to be used for? Is it just general work, internet surfing and the odd online game? Or is it heavy gaming and Photo-editing?

First off, the best way to find all your PC specs is to use CPU-Z, this tells you EVERYTHING about the CPU as well as how much RAM (and at what Speed) and your GPU too...

Aslong as your hard drives are SATA you can use them with your new CPU and motherboard..

Blu-ray drives are expensive, so you can't really afford one on your budget..

As for PSU's Modular PSU are great though can cost a premium so if you have a big case you wont really see the advantage..

If you are wanting to run your old GPU it would be handy to know what it is, so we can determine the power it needs, or whether its worth replacing it entirely with on-board graphics from a trinity chip..

The FX 4100's aren't very good (neither are the 6000's) for that price your a lot better of going one of two routes, for pure processing pwer the i3 3220 or for graphical performance the A10-5800k.

Take a look a those two.

Does this help?

 

[Clawtooth]

Hi, thanks for the reply!

I generally use my PC for work, internet browsing and a fair amount of gaming. I also use a lot of music software - though sound cards aren't really an issue for me as I can't tell the difference.

GFX card is the AMD Radeon HD 6670 (produced by Asus, fanned) - just found the box in my parents house hehe.

I do see your point on bd drives - it'd be a nice thing to have I suppose but I don't really need one.

Since the modular and non-modular PSUs are the same price, would the nodular one be straight up better? Since it's a micro ATX case space is kinda at a permium right?

Might I ask what's not too great about the 4100s? The reasons I went for that bundle are because of cost, mostly, and it seems to get a good write-up from the people reviewing it. Also, I'm not too confident with the whole thermal pasting and such set-up part of building a PC. I can screw things in and plug in sockets fine, but it's be nervous about breaking a pin on the CPU, so a pre-built bundle like that is good for me.

Hope tat answers some of your questions and thanks for your advice .

 

[honosuseri]

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A10-5800K Black Edition 3.80GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD580KWOHJBOX) £86.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A85XM-D3H AMD A85X Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 micro ATX Motherboard £58.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 500w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020059-UK) £49.99
1 x Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVI38G213C1K) £39.95
1 x Asus 24x DVD±RW DRW-24B5ST SATA ReWriter - Black (Retail) £17.99
Total : £265.31 (includes shipping : £9.50).



The A10K is gaming capable but your 6670 GPU can be hybrid Xfired to help boost the performance as you own the GPU. RAM is fast to keep the APUs IGP happy, mobo is mATX, maybe you can reuse your case for now as I'm at the max of your budget already? This PSU is modular and the same price as the non modular whilst on pre-order, it will be more expensive once in stock.

Although the i3 CPU is a similar price it's the mobo for it that will be an issue. The H61 mobos dont have sataIII this FM2 mobo I have spec'd does. If you want an intel build you need to think about using a full sized ATX mobo/case. Ask your dad what your case takes if you dont know.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £83.99
1 x MSI Z77A-G43 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - FREE Alpenföhn Civetta Cooler!! £69.98
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 500w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020059-UK) £49.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £35.99
1 x Asus 24x DVD±RW DRW-24B5ST SATA ReWriter - Black (Retail) £17.99
Total : £269.94 (includes shipping : £10.00).




Hope this helps. Any questions feel free to ask. If you need assistance with the build or god forbid hit any problems you know where to find us

 

[Doomedspeed]

Hi, thanks for the reply!

Thats why were here..

I generally use my PC for work, internet browsing and a fair amount of gaming. I also use a lot of music software - though sound cards aren't really an issue for me as I can't tell the difference.

What sort of Games? Do you go for High settings, Is your Current GPU coping with your current games?

GFX card is the AMD Radeon HD 6670 (produced by Asus, fanned) - just found the box in my parents house hehe.

You don't know how perfect that is..

The Trinity (a10-5800k) can run in hybrid crossfire with 6670's taking your GPU capabilities a lot higher.
Im sure it quite easy to setup, though a bit of research won't harm..

Might I ask what's not too great about the 4100s? The reasons I went for that bundle are because of cost, mostly, and it seems to get a good write-up from the people reviewing it. Also, I'm not too confident with the whole thermal pasting and such set-up part of building a PC. I can screw things in and plug in sockets fine, but it's be nervous about breaking a pin on the CPU, so a pre-built bundle like that is good for me.

Ahh, well the 4100 isnt too good, it's on a simular level to intels pentium g850 and surpassed by the i3 3220. Though intel chips can cost a premium.

AMD's Trinity range seem right up your street has it has in-built graphics and a CPU simular to the i3 to cope with your Uni Work..

Don't worry about thermal paste, as the Stock CPU cooler comes with some already pre-applied. It's just a case of peeling the plastic away and screwing it in place..

This is what i'd suggest:

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A10-5800K Black Edition 3.80GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD580KWOHJBOX) £86.99
1 x ASRock FM2A55M-DGS AMD A55 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £41.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020046-UK) £36.98
1 x Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVI38G186C9K) £35.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £32.99
Total : £249.04 (includes shipping : £11.75).



All in stock and 430W will be more than enough.