Help in upgrading friends PC

LukieBoy007

LukieBoy007

LukieBoy007

Soldato
Joined
4 Apr 2012
Posts
2,561
Location
England
Hi,
My mate has an ageing PC:
Core 2 Duo E6660
Generic PSU
Socket 775 Motherboard
2GB DDR3 RAM
Generic Case

And is wanting to upgrade. He has £150 max to spend, and I was thinking a new PSU, a secondhand GTX 460 and 8GB RAM.
Is this along the right lines, or what would you recommend?

Here's a pic of his PC, I'm unsure how upgradable it'll be:
n4b9qt.jpg


Thanks! :)
 
What does he want to acfhive? better gaming?

If so he could try a cheap 2nd hand low power GFX card such as a ATI 5770? that shouldn't put too much strain on the PSU.
 
 
Last edited:
I think starting from scratch is the better choice here.

Ill post you a trinity build which performance wise is impressive considering the money. It may go £67 over your budget and not include a case but im sure you will be able to find a second hand case somewhere cheap. If your not interested, the PSU is still a super reliable and great PSU, the ram too. You could save money on the PSU but you wont find one as reliable with as good warranty. You could also drop some money on the CPU but i think the performance to cost ratio here is perfect so i personally wouldnt if i could help it.

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A8-5600K Black Edition 3.60GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD560KWOHJBOX) £79.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A55M-DS2 AMD A55 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £49.99
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £39.95
1 x Samsung Green (MV-3V4G3D/US) 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz 30nm Dual Channel Kit £35.99
Total : £217.32 (includes shipping : £9.50).




A number of reasons why starting new is a good idea, one of them being that the case, PSU and motherboard are no longer standard and so that makes changing one of them and not the other an absolute pain.
 
Well, I spy a Dell logo in that computer. Older dells have the same power supply plugs as the current PSU's, however they change the pin arrangement so that on some of these Dells, you wouldn't be able to use a standard PSU. If you are lucky the new PSU wont power, if your unlucky, your components will fry and either way, you have wasted your PSU money.
 
Depends how much it is, but I wouldn't be happy paying anymore than say £20 for example.

Also what games does he want to play? asking a 5770 to run say Crysis3 well isnt going to happen.

Another factor in that tho is the resolution of the monitor.
 
dacads said:
How many watts is the PSU?

Personally I would also start fresh

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A6-5400K Black Edition 3.60GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Dual Core Processor (AD540KOKHJBOX) £49.99
1 x MSI A55M-E33 AMD A55 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £40.99
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £39.95
1 x Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVI38G160C9K) £35.99
1 x Zalman T2 ATX Mini Tower Case - Black £19.99
Total : £186.91 (includes shipping : FREE).

Click to expand...

Avenged7Fold said:
I think starting from scratch is the better choice here.

Ill post you a trinity build which performance wise is impressive considering the money. It may go £67 over your budget and not include a case but im sure you will be able to find a second hand case somewhere cheap. If your not interested, the PSU is still a super reliable and great PSU, the ram too. You could save money on the PSU but you wont find one as reliable with as good warranty. You could also drop some money on the CPU but i think the performance to cost ratio here is perfect so i personally wouldnt if i could help it.

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A8-5600K Black Edition 3.60GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD560KWOHJBOX) £79.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A55M-DS2 AMD A55 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £49.99
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £39.95
1 x Samsung Green (MV-3V4G3D/US) 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz 30nm Dual Channel Kit £35.99
Total : £217.32 (includes shipping : £9.50).




A number of reasons why starting new is a good idea, one of them being that the case, PSU and motherboard are no longer standard and so that makes changing one of them and not the other an absolute pain.
Click to expand...

You'll need faster RAM for Trinity.

YOUR BASKET
1 x GeIL EVO Leggera 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (GEL38GB1866C10DC) £35.99
Total : £39.90 (includes shipping : £3.26).



Change the board to this one and you can use 2133.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-545-AS&groupid=701&catid=1903&subcat=2399
 
stulid said:
Depends how much it is, but I wouldn't be happy paying anymore than say £20 for example.

Also what games does he want to play? asking a 5770 to run say Crysis3 well isnt going to happen.

Another factor in that tho is the resolution of the monitor.
Click to expand...

All he wants to play is COD4 really, with like Minecraft and stuff maybe.
 
The only thing you can do with that rig is chuck a faster graphics card in. Even then you can't get anything particularly powerful as the PSU won't take it. Any card you buy will also be bottlenecked by that CPU and what is probably a PCIe 1.0 slot. Upgrading the ram isn't particularly appealing with the price of DDR2 now either.

The only sensible move is starting again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom