Upgrade advice

Namsnik · 27 Aug 2012 at 22:30

Hi,
My son would like a desktop to take to Uni. He will be using Office 2010 or 2007 and currently plays Civ1V, FSX and F1 2011. However I expect his demands will increase!
We have 2 desktops and I was planning on giving him the GA_965P_DS3P based one but the graphics card just blew its capacitors so it got me thinking about repair/upgrade options.

So my question is what upgrades would you advise for these two systems? One for son one for me.

DesktopA:
Power: 500W
Mainboard: GA_965P_DS3P
Processor: E6200
Graphics: Radeon X1950 Pro nb currently with blown capacitors
Memory: 2Gb Crucial Ballistix
HardDrive: 500Gb, 250Gb
Vista Home Premium

DesktopB:
Power: XPS-650w-3XS
Mainboard: GA-G31M-ES2C
Processor: E7500 2.93ghz 1066 FSB, 3mb Cache
Graphics: MSI GeForce GTX 460
Memory: 3gb
HardDrive: 320Gb
Windows 7 Home Premium

Also: Where would I buy FZ76 1500 6.3v x 6 + FZ76 470 x 2 capacitors? Only the 1500 ones have blown but I guess it is worth doing them all – and with a better quality if I can. Probably this needs a separate post – but where?

Namsnik · 28 Aug 2012 at 06:30

Thanks

Thanks - that's just the sort of advice I wanted.

Namsnik · 28 Aug 2012 at 19:42

Great advice - thanks

Thanks Marine-RX179! I think that gives me an upgrade strategy - basically scrap Desktop A and start again but re-use the GTX 660 in the new machine.

Operating system is OEM.

Your comments on the GA_965P_DS3P/E6200 interesting as I wondered if this were actually a better motherboard than the other one (even though older).

I assume that desktop A would have significantly better performance of the two? I'll think a bit more about the spec on this one - my budget and requirements. It will include 2 low end 1920x? screens, a new power supply (existing is Jeantech I think) and a 2Tb drive.

Desktop B: I'll follow your advice. I guess that for a cooler I should be able to use the Artic Cooling Freezer 7 pro CPU Cooler from Desktop A?

I expect to order, at least for DesktopB on Friday so any further advice very welcome before then.

Namsnik · 29 Aug 2012 at 21:33

oops made a mistake it is "only" N460GTX Cyclone 1 GD5/OC

Sorry I was mistaken my good graphics card is:
MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

How much does that change the advice - Would you leave that with Desktop B?

I have pre-ordered 2 of the OCZ Vertex 2E 120GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G)
and have the Artic Cooling MX-4 in my basket

For Desktop A.
I will order 2tb drive - probably this one as my existing drives are seagate
Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003)
I gather that if I get a Z77 board I will then be able to create an SSD cache? Will this add other requirements?