Hello everyone and thanks for looking at my post. I have decided to upgrade may parents old (2003ish) pc to slightly more modern standards.
Its a Sony VAIO PCV-RS200 Series and is as standard as it was out of the retail box:
Motherboard: Asus A7N266VX (Socket A) I think its AGP only
CPU: Athlon XP 2800+ @ 2.1GHz (Socket A)
RAM: 2 x 184pin DIMM's of 256MB DRAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 128MB
My parents use this computer for general internet surfing etc where as i use it for games (all be it on the minimum settings
) its now showing its age though as the system specs are dropping below the minimum requirements for some newer games. So id like to upgrade it so it will be able to run at higher settings.
My first port of call was to crucials online memory scanner, where it informs me that i should put in Crucial 1GB DDR PC2700 CAS 2.5 (CT12864Z335) (MY-025-CR) £68.09 (inc VAT)
With a little poking around on the internet i've learned that DDR RAM was designed to be backward compatible so the slightly better and only a fraction of the price more Crucial 1GB DDR PC3200 CAS3.0 Dual Channel Kit (2x512MB) (C2KIT6464Z40B) (MY-037-CR) £76.32 (Inc VAT) should also work fine with this motherboard.
It also informs me that i should upgrade the graphics card to HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1600 Pro ICEQ 512MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-055-HT) £140.94 (Inc VAT)
Which confuses me a lot as i thought if the motherboard what was installed is running on a nforce chipset (which this must be because it has a NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 card installed) it wouldnt run a ATI graphic card
So while i was browsing OCUK looking at the different options i noticed the Bundles section where its possible to buy a complete set of [Motherboard/RAM/CPU] and they would all be compatible with one another. Then all i would need is a suitable replacement graphics card.
Im open to suggestions here on what i should do. Buy the seperates suggested and stick with this motherboard or upgrade the lot using a bundle suggested by OCUK and get a graphics card at the same time or any other options i hadnt considered?
I dont think the case needs upgrading or anything else like that, its not a bad sized tower really. Maybe that airflow is a little resticted for a mega performance computer though.
My budget is about £400 for either way i upgrade. I appreciate any replies and hope i dont confuse people with me noobness, if you dont understand me just ask and ill try to clarify
Its a Sony VAIO PCV-RS200 Series and is as standard as it was out of the retail box:
Motherboard: Asus A7N266VX (Socket A) I think its AGP only
CPU: Athlon XP 2800+ @ 2.1GHz (Socket A)
RAM: 2 x 184pin DIMM's of 256MB DRAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 128MB
My parents use this computer for general internet surfing etc where as i use it for games (all be it on the minimum settings
) its now showing its age though as the system specs are dropping below the minimum requirements for some newer games. So id like to upgrade it so it will be able to run at higher settings.My first port of call was to crucials online memory scanner, where it informs me that i should put in Crucial 1GB DDR PC2700 CAS 2.5 (CT12864Z335) (MY-025-CR) £68.09 (inc VAT)
With a little poking around on the internet i've learned that DDR RAM was designed to be backward compatible so the slightly better and only a fraction of the price more Crucial 1GB DDR PC3200 CAS3.0 Dual Channel Kit (2x512MB) (C2KIT6464Z40B) (MY-037-CR) £76.32 (Inc VAT) should also work fine with this motherboard.
It also informs me that i should upgrade the graphics card to HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1600 Pro ICEQ 512MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-055-HT) £140.94 (Inc VAT)
Which confuses me a lot as i thought if the motherboard what was installed is running on a nforce chipset (which this must be because it has a NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 card installed) it wouldnt run a ATI graphic card
So while i was browsing OCUK looking at the different options i noticed the Bundles section where its possible to buy a complete set of [Motherboard/RAM/CPU] and they would all be compatible with one another. Then all i would need is a suitable replacement graphics card.
Im open to suggestions here on what i should do. Buy the seperates suggested and stick with this motherboard or upgrade the lot using a bundle suggested by OCUK and get a graphics card at the same time or any other options i hadnt considered?
I dont think the case needs upgrading or anything else like that, its not a bad sized tower really. Maybe that airflow is a little resticted for a mega performance computer though.
My budget is about £400 for either way i upgrade. I appreciate any replies and hope i dont confuse people with me noobness, if you dont understand me just ask and ill try to clarify
