Help with upgrade

Soup and a roll · 7 Jan 2009 at 22:01

Hi guys! My first time here, I was hoping I could get some help from you knowledgeable techies.

I'm running a computer I bought from a friend about two years ago for a couple of hundred and haven't had any problems from it. I'm looking to play some of the big games coming out soon. It does well on "can you run it" but struggles badly with Crysis. I was wondering what would be the best way to upgrade it: New graphics card, better ram or a better motherboard. I'm afraid I don't know what the weakest area of the computer is. Here's the spec:

ECS nForce4 A393 motherboard
Dual core AMD Athlon 64x2 2400 MHz
Nvidia Geforce 7900 GTX (512Mg)
2x Vdata 1Gb PC3200 DDR400 SDRAM

I don't really have a budget so any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks!

sh4dy1981 · 7 Jan 2009 at 22:02

what do u use the computer for?

sh4dy1981 · 7 Jan 2009 at 22:06

easier if ppl have a budget to go by.

mpj88 · 7 Jan 2009 at 22:14

tbh you'd probably be best starting from scratch! Maybe keeping you 7900 for now if you cant upgrade everything. But a decent intel dual core, a new p series board and some ram would do you well.

Soup and a roll · 7 Jan 2009 at 22:15

Thanks for the replies:

It's very much a games machine. At the moment I mostly play Stalker, DOW and Medieval 2. I'll be buying Fallout3 and would like it to run smoothly. I don't normally use a resolution higher than 1280-1024.

Budgetwise I'd rather spend a little than a lot, but say £300. If I'd be better buying a new system I could spend more.

Cheers

mpj88 · 7 Jan 2009 at 22:21

HIS ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £106.99
(£123.04) £106.99
(£123.04)
Asus P5QL-E Intel P43 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £71.99
(£82.79) £71.99
(£82.79)
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.50GHz (800FSB) - Retail £59.99
(£68.99) £59.99
(£68.99)
Crucial Ballistix Tracer RED 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT25664AR80A) £42.99
(£49.44) £42.99
(£49.44)

Total : £324.25

That gfx card should have no probs at 1280x1024.
Is your psu ok?
You got good sata hdd's?

sh4dy1981 · 7 Jan 2009 at 22:22

what psu do u have?

Soup and a roll · 7 Jan 2009 at 22:36

Hey. The PSU is a powermaster 570W dual fan

There is a Serial ATA connecting the HD and the DVD drive but I don't know anything about it so I'll get googling. edit: Looks like first generation. The HD is a 200Gb Hitachi "7200 rpm rotational speed. It includes one 40-pin IDC Ultra ATA/133 (ATA-7) IDE/EIDE interface port, and 105.4MBps Internal data transfer rate"

Cheers

mpj88 · 7 Jan 2009 at 22:43

You may want to remove the link to a competitor website, against the forum rules.

If its ata then def need a new hdd for that mobo. Might be best gettin something like a samsung f1 320gb for main use.

Soup and a roll · 7 Jan 2009 at 22:51

That's legendary. I'll look into those.

Thanks very much for your help mpj88 and sh4dy1981!

mpj88 · 7 Jan 2009 at 22:54

make sure your curent psu has a power lead for the gfx card.

And your welcome! Come back with any queries!