Little help with sons PC

magicroundabout · 27 Oct 2012 at 12:34

Basically he has a Dell Optiplex 745 which he uses for school work and day to day internet browsing. But he is also now getting into PC gaming.

His PC isn't upto scratch for much decent games etc and would like to upgrade his PC so he can play some.

Now i want to do this as cheap as possible and wondered if you could people could point me in a cheap direction for doing this or a way to upgrade his current PC

any help would be appreciated :cool:

mickyflinn · 27 Oct 2012 at 12:45

The cheapest way would be to add a graphics card but you may need a new power supply as well.

Is the dell a MINITOWER DESKTOP, SMALL FORM, ULTRA SMALL FORM FACTOR

you can check here

http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/optix/en/opti_745techspecs.pdf

Idleman · 27 Oct 2012 at 12:49

Any idea of the budget?
Also, have you any components you can reuse: sata hdd/odd, decent Psu, for instance.

magicroundabout · 27 Oct 2012 at 13:03

i'm unsure of the PSU without having a proper look but this is what he has so far

obviously the GC needs upgrading and also the ram but i'm wondering if it's worth trying to sort the motherboard out too?

also budget isn't a great deal. £100 - £150

Idleman · 27 Oct 2012 at 13:09

Have you had a look in the MM?

magicroundabout · 27 Oct 2012 at 13:12

Idleman said:
Have you had a look in the MM?

no mate. hadn't crossed my mind too. will look now though

Idleman · 27 Oct 2012 at 13:31

magicroundabout said:
no mate. hadn't crossed my mind too. will look now though

Might be your best bet, you will get more for your money.

2x2gb ram and a decent Gpu. Then OC the E6400, if the mobo is any good.

magicroundabout · 27 Oct 2012 at 13:46

can you OC on a dell board/bios?

foster grant · 27 Oct 2012 at 13:57

I don't think you should expect much gaming from a Dell PC to be honest , even their "Gaming" PCs are crap ...i had one , even put a new 600W PSU in it too ....complete wast of money

....you would do better ( if you can ) to maybe save some money and get a proper mobo a proper PSU and case too

magicroundabout · 27 Oct 2012 at 14:01

i am thinking that tbh too Foster. a decent 775 set with a half decent case would suit him much better for what he needs.

foster grant · 27 Oct 2012 at 14:13

When there's doubt...there is no doubt uh lol

Mercutio · 27 Oct 2012 at 17:46

Take a look around for the cheapest 1155 board you can find (it will usually be a H61). With that grab a cheap 1155 chip (an i3 would be nice but probably a bit too much, the G8xx intel chips are 1155 and "ok".) When Haswell comes there's going to be a lot of "old" 1155 chips on the market/bay to upgrade again to something a bit more rounded chip wise.

I did for a friend:

H61 + G820
8GB Ram
GTX460

Which has made a perfectly ok little gaming machine for £160. He already had case and drives etc. A lot of it was MM stuff etc ofc.

Akagi · 27 Oct 2012 at 21:34

foster grant said:
I don't think you should expect much gaming from a Dell PC to be honest , even their "Gaming" PCs are crap ...i had one , even put a new 600W PSU in it too ....complete wast of money ....you would do better ( if you can ) to maybe save some money and get a proper mobo a proper PSU and case too

If he is going to do that then he may as well start from scratch.

Sasahara · 27 Oct 2012 at 23:32

Looking at the system I agree with Idleman 2x2gb ram and a graphics card.

I'm gonna assume the power supply isn't gonna be great so without it's specific spec the following card is what I'd suggest as it don't require additional power connectors.

HD 7750 £83.99
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-072-HS

This is by far the best card in it's class and really anything faster would be wasted on an E6400 anyway.

For the ram I'd recommend looking for 4 Gb on the MM or other well know 2nd hand sites.