Spec me - Basic PC Upgrade

InvisiblePrawn · 5 Feb 2013 at 19:34

Hi guys.

I finally convinced my parents to let me upgrade their ~10 year old, crushingly slow Dell tower. I think I can salvage some things ie. case, optical drive, network card etc. but I know for certain that it needs a new board, CPU and HDD. Memory and PSU as well for compatibility. The old VGA monitor is fine and I can source an OS from University (yay Dreamspark!).

How compatible are older cases with new boards? It's just a generic case and it doesn't have to be pretty.

I don't have the thing yet so I cant tell exactly what I can save but it really doesn't have to be anything special - just enough for surfing and office work. Looking to spend around the £200 mark.

Here's what I'm thinking so far:

Intel Pentium G840 2.80GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail Retail £55.99

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) HDD £43.99

Asus P8H61-MX USB 3.0 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - OEM ** £39.98

Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020046-UK) £39.95

Corsair Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit £23.98

Total: £~205

Please reccomend any improvements/changes and forgive any obvious mistakes, this was just a 5 minute selection. I bow to your collective wisdom OCUK forums!

dacads · 5 Feb 2013 at 19:44

Modern motherboards tend not to have an IDE slot so unless the optical drive is SATA you can wave it bye bye

Other then that looks good mate, I keep hinting my dad to upgrade the old dell as well but he's having none of it haha

LukieBoy007 · 5 Feb 2013 at 19:49

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI B75MA-P45 Intel B75 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £53.99
1 x Intel Pentium G620 2.60GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £44.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020058-UK) £38.99
1 x **B Grade** Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £25
2 x Adata XPG Gaming v1.0 4GB (1x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Single Channel Module (AX3U1600GC4G9-1G) £19.99 (£39.98)
Total : £214.94 (includes shipping : £10.00).

Better motherboard
Modular PSU
8GB RAM, although 4GB may be fine anyway

snips86x · 5 Feb 2013 at 19:54

YOUR BASKET
1 x Adata XPG Gaming v2.0 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-15000C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AX3U1866GC4G9B-DG2) £49.99
1 x MSI A55M-E33 AMD A55 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £40.99
1 x AMD A4-5300 3.40GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Dual Core Processor (AD5300OKHJBOX) £35.99
1 x Antec VP350P 350W '80 Plus' Continuous Power Supply £32.99
1 x **B Grade** Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £25
Total : £196.36 (includes shipping : £9.50).

Idleman · 5 Feb 2013 at 19:59

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Pentium G640 2.80GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £49.99
1 x Asus P8H61-MX USB 3.0 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - OEM ** £39.98
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020046-UK) £39.95
1 x **B Grade** Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-252-SE) £30
1 x TeamGroup Elite 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED34096M1600HC11DC) £23.99
Total : £195.91 (includes shipping : £10.00).

snips86x · 5 Feb 2013 at 20:03

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Pentium G640 2.80GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £49.99
1 x Asus P8H61-MX USB 3.0 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - OEM ** £39.98
1 x Antec VP350P 350W '80 Plus' Continuous Power Supply £32.99
1 x **B Grade** Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-252-SE) £30
1 x TeamGroup Elite 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED34096M1600HC11DC) £23.99
Total : £188.95 (includes shipping : £10.00).

InvisiblePrawn · 6 Feb 2013 at 11:38

Thanks for your quick replies guys.

I'm going with a mixture of everyone's suggestions. Mixing in some B-grade stuff as well.

Would those Pentiums and, say, an Asus H61 board be overclockable at all? They're probably not designed for it...

Also, how is the iGPU on them? I'm sure it'll be sufficient for basic use.

Thanks again,

InvisiblePrawn · 7 Feb 2013 at 16:34

Bump?

LukieBoy007 · 7 Feb 2013 at 16:50

No overclocking there.
The iGPU will be perfectly fine for basic use.

InvisiblePrawn · 7 Feb 2013 at 20:43

Thanks for all your help guys.

Just placed an order. I persuaded them to up the budget and snagged a 128Gb SSD. It's gonna' be a nice little machine!

teenwolf · 7 Feb 2013 at 20:45

SSD will make all the difference