New build - Help please!!

Dan1984

Dan1984

Dan1984

Associate
Joined
1 Sep 2010
Posts
3
Hi,

I am looking at upgrading my parents old system and was hoping to do a fairly straight forward change of the CPU/MB/RAM, however, I had forgotten just how old their current system is and I doubt anything will transfer over.

I was hoping to spend around £200 to get an AM3 system but now will the extra bits the price keeps going up, hopefully someone can confirm my thinking on what is needed to make it work. I have also looked at the build guides which have been really helpful so far, so thank you.

PSU - Currently has an original ATX (20 pin) unit and I think it's Winpower or something. I am pretty sure I will have to change this to fot moderm boards?

MB - It needs to be Micro ATX (already have the case and the space the case fits in). I am looking at the Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H and just use the onboard graphics http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-201-GI Any views?

CPU - I am thinking of something like the Athlon II 250. Any comments on it or has anyone seen it running Windows 7 just general web browsing etc?

RAM - I would like to go DDR3 1333 or 1600 to allow for future upgrades but I know the memory controller on the Athlon only goes to 1333. Am I right in thinking that the controller will underclock 1600 to 1333. If 1600 is the same price is there any adv/dis otherthan headroom to overclock/upgrade?

I am probably going to have to go Windows 7 as the current XP is OEM so I believe it's useless, also maybe throwing a new HDD at it as the current one is small/slow.

Any comments/suggestions would be great as I want to make sure I am getting them value for money and a good base system, it's not my money after all!!

Thanks

Dan
 
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line
Total
Asus M4A88TD-M EVO/USB3 AMD 880G
(Socket AM3) DDR3 microATX Motherboard £82.99
(£70.63)
£82.99
(£70.63)
Geil Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9
1333MHz Dual Channel (GV34GB1333C9DC) £70.49
(£59.99)
£70.49
(£59.99)
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 245 2.90GHz
(Socket AM3) - Retail £43.46
(£36.99)
£43.46
(£36.99)
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply
(CMPSU-400CXUK) £32.99
(£28.08)
£32.99
(£28.08)
Sub
Total : £195.69
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland
with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout)
Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £35.91
Total : £241.10

as you say, you need a newer psu.

also I take it that the old pc harddrive and optical drive are probably IDE style, most newer motherboards have only one or none of these old connections.

if it does have one IDE connection, having the optical drive on the same ribbon cable as the harddrive will drop its transfer speed down to the slowest device, which will suck.
 
Thanks for that very quick reply!

Good point on the IDE, they will be IDE, any suggestions on a new SATA HDD? Is it possible to convert an old IDE to work in a SATA. Would like to be able to use the old HHD for extra storage.
 
As far as the HDD is concerned most people would suggest the spinpoint F3s 500GB is £30ish a 1TB example is £40ish.

As stulid pointed out you need to check if there is an IDE connector on the mobo. As long as you have one you can reuse the old cd/dvd drive. The other option is to buy a cheap sata dvd drive and use the IDE HDDs this will work out slightly cheaper but imho is false economy. The F3 drive will be far superior in capacity aswell as speed, if you want to reuse the old IDE HDDs buy an external caddy for it/them.

Good luck with the build
 
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