Upgrade-A-Noob!

WARHURYEAH · 7 Nov 2010 at 13:07

So I'm wanting to upgrade my gf's pc, cheaply and efficiently...

Current specs (as I know)
Mobo: GeForce 6100 AM2 Socket something or other.
RAM: 2GB
Processor is AMD Athlon 64x2 @ 2Ghz afaik
GPU: ATI 4850 XFX
and a whopping 76GB hard drive!

Now, what I want to upgrade is the RAM, Processor and get a new Hard Drive.

But that might not be completely possible.

So, I want to get as much performance as I can, as cheaply as I can, with doing as little work as I can as I'm very inexperienced on building PC's.

The only game I play on it is TF2 so it doesn't need to be upgraded to a 1337 machine.

Thankies for all suggestions.

WARHURYEAH · 7 Nov 2010 at 13:23

PSU is a trust 570w dual fan.

Can't remember the exact make of the mobo but I will try and find out soon.

I use a laptop with 250GB space and I'm running out, I need more space on the PC as it will be my main use once I upgrade it and there's only around 60GB of space left out of 75GB.

And my budget would be around £350 max. Not sure about the hardware and if it will fit in the case.

The probably 6 months later I will buy a new case etc.

And ya'll gonna have to explain the cables and stuff needed as I have no clue.

Also I'd be open to upgrading Windows, we are on WinXP but for some reason it's not authorized and we don't have the disk to reinstall, so we'd probably have to move to Win7

And another thing, I might need a network & sound card, not sure how onboard sound drivers are but if they're good enough and can avoid buying a new one that's cool.

WARHURYEAH · 7 Nov 2010 at 13:32

And to clarify, Nutterz is being helpful to me and giving me explanations of suggested upgrades

As I said I really don't want to do anything to complicated, just plugging stuff in was a struggle for me when I put a new GFX card in ( I knocked out the HardDrive cable without me knowing and for 2 hours I was spamming everyone I knew asking for explanations

)

MOBO: Just found a yellow sticker on the box with:

NF61S MicroAM2 SE
Socket AM2/HT 2G
Dual DDR2
Sata2/RAID

Not sure if it helps.

WARHURYEAH · 7 Nov 2010 at 13:51

NutterzUK said:
If you download CPUID ( here http://www.cpuid.com/ ), you will be able to find out what motherboard you have in it. I think from that we should be able to decide if you need to upgrade your motherboard or if you can just upgrade the other components.

Pretty much, your upgradability depends on your motherboard, if your motherboard can't take any more than it already has, then you will have to upgrade your motherboard, if there is plenty of room to upgrade... you can upgrade your memory and processor without the mobo. That also saves you some money

NF61S MicroAM2 SE
Socket AM2/HT 2G
Dual DDR2
Sata2/RAID

thats all the info I have on the mobo

well, it's from the box that the mobo came in.

would it be cheaper to buy a new PC and just replace the GPU with the one I have now?

WARHURYEAH · 7 Nov 2010 at 13:58

stulid said:
why waste money on a whole new pc, when we can spec you for much less £££ a good upgrade.

Not really a whole new PC, as I have a GPU that I want to keep as I only bought it a few months ago.

I kinda want the extra RAM and Processor power as TF2 is a very CPU heavy game and I dabble in video editing and graphic design every so often.

But as I said, the cheapest way of doing it would be best, but, if there's another option where I might have to spend more, but it last longer in the long term, then go for it, I can wait a little longer to get something that will last 6 months longer.

If you guys recommended a new mobo then that's fine with me. I will pop open the PC case and take a photo inside for ya'll to see if anything can or cannot fit in etc.