PC upgrade for Dad,

Ethermaster

Ethermaster

Ethermaster

Soldato
Joined
23 Nov 2011
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2,744
Location
London
Hi Guys,

As the title really, my old man wants to upgrade his aging Dell desktop which is a really old Intel P4 Northwood, takes an age to boot and is loud as hell! I informed him then rather going out to buy a a new PC he could upgrade for around the £250 mark (maybe even cheaper), which of course got his attention.

I have picked out a very simple and cheap spec for what will be in fact a complete rebuild of the internal parts. How I know I'm one of the people that tries (until Stulid turns up) to help people spec there gaming machines but these low end cheap as inexpensive fried potatoes builds I do like to get the views and some good ideas from you lot at OCuK!

This machine will spend the rest of its life just browsing the internet, social media and flash games (before you start banging on about flash games are system hungry, this spec should play them with no problem) so it doesn't need to be massively powerful, The only demanding thing it may do is the odd bit of HD video play back from Youtube.

I will be re-using his old case and replacing the old stock fan's for those nice and silent BitFenix Spectre ones. It’s a shame that both his current HDD and DVD-ROM Drive are both IDE would have saved me a shed load of cash.

Anyway on to the spec ! here's what I have picked.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £57.98
1 x MSI H61M-P31-G3 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £35.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £34.99
1 x Intel Celeron G530 2.40GHz Socket LGA 1155 Processor - Retail £29.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £19.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.98
2 x BitFenix Spectre Plain BLACK 120mm Fan £5.99 (£11.98)
Total : £214.90 (includes shipping : £10.00).



Advice is welcome, is there any thing I should consider within the price range of £250 ?? I was thinking going i3 but for what he will be using it for I don't think he will really be needed.

Thanks Guy's an Gal's :)
 
Last edited:
 
jamesfreddie said:
What model dell is it?
Click to expand...

Off the top of head no idea, it comes from the era before Dell went crazy and started with the whole "lets put a case design in that if the person whats to upgrade they are well and turely stuffed".

I have an old couple of cases if worst comes to worst :)

That Gigabyte board is interesting ..... I normally steer clear of them myself as have had a a nightmare trying to RMA a mobo back a few years ago which came dead, may have to see if things have changed :)
 
Ethermaster said:
Off the top of head no idea, it comes from the era before Dell went crazy and started with the whole "lets put a case design in that if the person whats to upgrade they are well and turely stuffed".

I have an old couple of cases if worst comes to worst :)

That Gigabyte board is interesting ..... I normally steer clear of them myself as have had a a nightmare trying to RMA a mobo back a few years ago which came dead, may have to see if things have changed :)
Click to expand...

The only reason i ak#sk is because i have never seen a dell that takes a pair of 120mm fans.
 
I'd say buy a case, for three reasons.
1. god knows about dell compatibility
2. it'll be a better case
3. it'll make the whole thing FEEL new

Windows 7?
 
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