Best Way to upgrade this rig for £250

DampCat

DampCat

DampCat

Soldato
Joined
26 Feb 2007
Posts
14,187
Location
Leafy Cheshire
Friend of mine has just dropped this question on me. I only really tend to keep up to date on parts every 2 years or so when i rebuild mine.

He's currently using:
Asus P5KPL-Am
Celeron 2.2ghz (dont know model number, only that its dual core 512k cache)
4gb unknown brand DDR2
Nvidia GT620

Is it best to stick with the P5K and push up to a non-Celeron cpu or just scrap the lot? If so what's the bang for buck around £250?

Cheers
 
Last edited:
Does he need all other stuff like OS, keyboard, case etc?

250 can get you a decent bundle...but doesn't include PSU, HD, Case etc.
 
No the rest of the stuff is there and rolling.

I should note that it has a GT620 gfx card too which is getting on a bit.
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte HD 7770 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £99.95
1 x AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 640 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £59.99
1 x Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 AMD 760G (Socket AM3+) DDR3 MicroATX Motherboard £47.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML4GX3M2A1600C9) £35.99
Total : £243.91 (includes shipping : FREE).



That will bring some life to the machine, I would suggest a Phenom chip over the Athlon as my current phenom is cheap as chips and performs very well.

Is this just a general PC? I added a 7770 into the mix as I assume some gaming will be done, but you can probably use an APU or iGPU instead.
 
Im not sure what case he is rocking. Will the MATX board fit in a full size or midi case, depending on what he has?
 
I have been hearing many whispers recently that the new APUs are releasing next month. If this is the case, with that budget, i think an A10-6800k with 8GB of 2133 RAM and a matching Kaveri compatible motherboard would be a perfect for the budget. Though we dont have exact numbers to play with, i dont see why they would be much more expensive than current generation APUs. The new ones have seen 20-30% GPU performance to the current generation ones, which are fairly impressive for what they are.

You might even have cash left over to put in a matching GPU to the iGPU to go crossfire for that extra ummmpphh (i haven't heard the mention that you can do this with the new APUs but i cant imagine why they would take out this feature, when it worked so well with the current A series)


EDIT: have been googling the release date and i still cant find it. Maybe it was wishful thinking. :(
 
Last edited:
Reaper's spec is good but it still depends on what your friend uses the PC for.

mATX will fit fine in midi/full ATX cases.

What PSU does the system have?
 
Alright thanks guys.

Not sure on the PSU. I'll just fling this over to him and see how he feels. I'm going away for teh summer so i cant really be involved int he build but want to at least be pointing him in the right direction.

Cheeeeers!
 
1) Wait for Kaveri. will be a PS4-clone type / Steambox. Needs good fast RAM.

2) go with a A10.

3) A second hand 2500K, P68 / Z68, 4-8GB, and a cheap GPU. Or even a locked i5 sandybridge CPU, with H67 motherboard. Can have something decent nowadays for not much money on 2nd hand market (HD5850, HD6850, GTX460, HD6870, ect...).

Either way Looks like a full rebuild.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom