Upgrade Advice Please.

Raco · 22 Mar 2008 at 21:13

Hi,Just brought a cheap system off the Bay for £140.00
AMD DUAL CORE AM2 4600+ 64 X2
ASUS M2N-MX SE MOTHERBOARD.
ASUS ATI 3450 HD 256MB GRAPHICS CARD.
1024 MB RAM.
NEW GLOSSY BLACK ICUTE CASE WITH 500 WATT POWER SUPPLY,
DVD REWRITER.
250 GIG SATA II HARD DRIVE.
XSILIENCE CPU HEATSINK AND FAN.
120 MM BLUE LED CASE FAN.

The pc is for the misses who doesnt play many games just mainly guild wars ,Solitaire :rolleyes:

and stupid puzzle games

I am going to boost the ram up with This Week Only Offer
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK £24.66)
That leaves me with £100 for a better graphics card or anything else it would need.
Any advice please.

thefishdude · 23 Mar 2008 at 00:45

nice system for the price

if she dont really play games then i wouldnt upgrade the gfx. the ram icrease is nice

also maybe more hard drive space if you think you will use it ?

Vonny · 23 Mar 2008 at 03:42

She will be fine with just the extra ram.

Either upgrade the graphics now as she may want to play better games at some point, or really just spend the money on something non pc related tbh

steve258 · 23 Mar 2008 at 03:59

It's fine for her needs. The extra ram would be nice in vista.

Grumpy · 23 Mar 2008 at 09:21

Nice price on the system, as above, just the ram, no need for extra spending now if you are not going to fully utilise it.

I am sure the missus has seen a new handbag/pair of shoes that she would happily spend your £100 on

Raco · 24 Mar 2008 at 02:07

Thanks for the advice guys,I have ordered the ram to make it upto 3gig and also would like to get a new graphics card so she has the option of playing some new games.
My budget is £100-£150 for a decent graphics card,I was looking at a 8800gt but would this be to much for my cpu or should i get something less powerfull?
Her pc before this was a athlon 64 3000+/3gig ddr ram and a geforce 7600gs agp.
Hope this will improve on her old pc.

Monkeynut · 24 Mar 2008 at 02:49

What brand is the 500watt PSU? If it's a cheap one then it won't take a good GFX card.

The GFX in it is fine imho, spend the extra money on silencing it (quieter system fans, mahoosive CPU fan at slow speed, etc)

Raco · 25 Mar 2008 at 15:12

Hi,The psu in the system is a Antec Earthwatts 500w psu,Would i need to upgrade the psu to run a gfx card eg,OcUK ATI Radeon HD 3870 XT 512MB GDDR4 or a GT 8800.
If so would the Corsair TX 650W ATX2.2 SLi Compliant PSU be ok.
The ASUS ATI 3450 HD 256MB GRAPHICS CARD would be ok but i want to make sure she can play any game she feels like playing without worrying about if her graphics card is good enough.