Advice wanted

Heaven Can Wait · 30 Nov 2006 at 22:54

Only just got into computer hardware, for the past 10 years ive bought readymade Pc's but plan on changing that.

Currently have
Athlon 3.200+ @ 2.00, Radeon 9550, 1gb corsair ram
I tried overclocking it, got to 2.25 and then had to format, not sure what happened but oh well.
Could i cost effectively improve it to be able to play the latest games with better detail? im guessing the radeon 9550 is a little dated.
Planning on learning from the forums and buying a beast next year, but will want to use this as a second computer.

Any help appreciated.

Also not sure if this is in the wrong section :confused:

semi-pro waster · 30 Nov 2006 at 23:11

You are in the right section for general advice.

What is your budget for improvements to this PC? As that will be the easiest way for people to determine what needs upgraded and what you will gain the most benefit from. If you have say £70 then you should be able to get a 6800series or X800series AGP graphics card secondhand easily and that will be a major upgrade but if you have £25-40 then you could get a 9700/9800pro and that would give you a reasonable boost.

Heaven Can Wait · 30 Nov 2006 at 23:28

Well I have around £350 right now, but plan on buying one of the Asus MW221U's, based purely on what these forums say heh.
Will the 6800/x800 be able to cope with that size monitor?
Thanks for the help.

touch · 30 Nov 2006 at 23:31

Heaven Can Wait said:
the radeon 9550 is a little dated

understatement on a par with saying "Hitler was a bit of a dick sometimes"?

if you ask me, i'd say its probably not worth upgrading what you've got at the moment- the money would be much better put towards your "beast". Keep the parts of it that wont be "dated", like the dvd drive, case, floppy drive(?).

And yes, this is the right place to be for hardware advice. As you can see from posts such as....mine..., some people just havnt got a clue

. But every1 else knows what they are talking about

Heaven Can Wait · 30 Nov 2006 at 23:44

Didn't realise it was that bad, Would still like to upgrade it though, so i can play games via Lan.

Would I only need to buy the 6800 or would anything else be needed, better fan, etc?

semi-pro waster · 30 Nov 2006 at 23:49

Ok so given I don't know how much the Asus monitor would cost you I'd say that either a 6800GT or X800XT would cope with the monitor at it's native resolution (1680x1050?) but I'd seriously doubt you have any chance of having all settings maxed out although this depends on what games you play. Those cards would probably be the most effective upgrade that you could do given the age of the system and what you want them to do. Either of those cards will probably be nearer to the top end of the budget (£70) though, even secondhand, as although they are themselves somewhat dated now they are still reasonably powerful.

Heaven Can Wait · 1 Dec 2006 at 22:53

graphics card aside, would it be worth upgrading the ram or anything etc? or would it be the processer that would let it down?
should i be able to overclock it to 2.3Ghz? it being at 2.0 now.
Got a feeling that im doing something wrong.

Quixote · 1 Dec 2006 at 22:59

your cpu is not too bad. An AGP 7600GS or 7600GT would provide a massive boost for gaming.

Heaven Can Wait · 3 Dec 2006 at 00:55

What i mean is on top of the graphics card, what would it be that lets the computer down then?

Heaven Can Wait · 3 Dec 2006 at 17:21