Best Upgrade Path

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Hi all, a friend of mine is looking to upgrade his computer. His current setup was built by some insurance company after an electrical surge caused the other one to go boom :eek: . He's currently running a P4 630 (Prescott), 2x512 DDR2 in a ECS RC410L/800-M....Now he said hes got about £200 ish to spend on an upgrade as he wants it as future proof as possible. The board unfortunately only has 2 DIMM slots so more memory is only an option if he sells this stuff and then buys 2x1gb, although I don't know how much quicker it will be.

He basically would like to make it as future proof as possible, he doesn't really play any games (bar footy manager 2007) but would like a dual core if possible (I know :/)

I said if he really wanted, he could get a new mobo (must be microATX as it's all his case will accomodate... :rolleyes: ) , E6300, and 2x1gb RAM, which would allow him to keep all his current other things (DVD-ROM (IDE), DVD-RW (IDE), HDD(SATA)). But that would cost about £350 (which he is willing to spend)

Just wanted some opinions and options really so that I can put them past him, sorry for the long post but for those who can help please do!

Kiz
 
If he is willing to pay £350 then defo get E6300 + Asrock conroe 945G + 2Gb Value RAM. If £200 is all he is paying then 2Gb RAM will be a nice upgrade, plus a Pentium D if he really wants dual core, although they're pants comparing to C2D.
 
Yeah that's what I was thinking, although the only problem is I will have to get him a MicroATX board, I'm not too sure about c2d MicroATX boards, can anyone recommend me one? His GFX is unfortunately a 6200LE (PCI-E)So I may want to give him a better one of those as well (maybe a 7300) as he's running it on a 19" Widescreen monitor.

Kiz
 
semi-pro waster said:
The ASRock Conroe945G as mentioned is probably about as good as you will get from a mATX motherboard. Conroe is probably a bit wasted if the only real use will be Football Manager 2007 but it is his money. :)

Yeah I agree as well, but I think he intends to keep his computer for a long time as he had done with the other one before it went boom (about 3/4 years I think) and with Vista around the corner, it MAY be worth it :)

Thanks for your help guys :D

Kiz
 
6200LE is probably ok if he only plays footy manager, but I am not sure if it is powerful enough for the Vista Aero interface though, so he may need a new GFX too unless he will only be getting the Vista Home Basic.
 
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