Help with an budget upgrade

nasher32

nasher32

nasher32

Associate
Joined
11 Jan 2011
Posts
36
Hi all,

I am looking to upgrade my ageing pc but am unsure of the best way to go, my budget is around £150 - £175.

I currently use the pc for general internet browsing, itunes, office etc with some occasional encoding, video editing and some gaming (company of heroes) but wouldn’t mind trying a few more games.

Also I would quite like to be able to connect my pc to my 37”hd tv if needed for some movie viewing at good quality. This would be a once every few weeks thing though rather than an every day occurance. I use a vga input monitor for everyday use.

My Current spec is –

ASUS M2A VM HDMI (HDMI CARD NOT CONNECTED)
AMD Athlon 64x2 3800
NVidia Geforce 8500gt
WD 500GB HD
4GB DDR2 Ram PC2-5300 333
400w unbranded psu


I was thinking either buy a 60gb ssd and use this as the primary drive with the 500gb for storage then have a small upgrade on the processor and graphics card.

Or

Just upgrade the graphics card and processor…. and maybe the power supply?

Any help and prodcut advise would be appreciated!

Thanks
 
If you do decide to buy a 60GB SSD, your not really leaving much left over for the cpu and GPU.

Any particular reason you aren't running 800Mhz RAM?

Anyway. If I had £175 to spend on doing that up. I would upgrade the CPU to something like this
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-259-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=803

That leaves us around £100 tops.

If you wan't to get into gaming then you will need that Quad core cpu and of course a more up to date card. This is within your budget.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-226-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=

To power your new GPU and CPU I would recommend a decent PSU to power them. This should do the trick.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-033-CS&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=

That's around the £175 mark and you will notice a big improvement in games, aswell as your video editing, which likes 4 cores.

That card will also allow you to hook it upto your 37" telly via an HDMI cable using a DVI-HDMI adapter, you should get one supplied with the card. You will be able to utilise full HD content with your new GPU and CPU.

I personally wouldn't bother with an SSD. It is a luxury extra over the main components. An SSD would make no performance increase to your system, only make it more responsive.
 
Last edited:
Buch's suggested processor is a very good one, but the board in question is AM2- it won't run an Athlon II.

My suggestion would be to head over to your favourite website for second hand parts, and try to find:
-Athlon II X3/X4 (this may not be much cheaper than buying new)
-A compatible AM2+ board that takes DDR2 RAM, or an AM2+/AM3 board with 4GB of DDR3 RAM
-ATI 4850/4870
-A decent PSU (may be worth buying new)

You'll really struggle to find all this for £175 though. It may be worth leaving the graphics card until you can afford it, and sticking with your 8500 for now.
 
Thanks for the replies guys.

I think for the time being I may buy parts which I can still use when I am able to purchase a new motherboard cpu combo.

So I may just go for a graphics card upgrade and a spare 1gb hdd for now. Any suggestions for a graphics card (used is fine) for around £65 other than the 5570?

Thanks
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom