Upgrading (1st post,please go easy!)

The Mad Jock · 28 Jun 2007 at 06:22

Hi All,

Been spending a little time hanging round and observing on the forum, plenty of knowledge here it seems.

Looking to upgade my old self-build (still don't believe I managed to build it and have NEVER had any problems

) but not sure where to start. Last time I took the spec of a decent PC from a local specialist, bought the parts and built it myself, because I wanted to.

So, currently sitting inside a 400w PSU case are the following;

ASUS A7V8X-X Motherboard Socket A
Athlon 2200 Processor (shows 1800Mhz in system info)
Kingston 512Mb 333Mhz DDR PC2700 RAM
ASUS V9520 Magic 128Mb Graphics Card
Hard Drive is 40Gb (can't recall spec and not there right now)
OS is Windows 98 with official XP Professional Upgrade

Basically looking to spend a small amount in order to get her playing MS Flight Simulator 2004 at a reasonable speed. I have taken the 1st step and gotten hold of another 1Gb of RAM, identical in all respects to my current stick but 1GB. So that will multiply my RAM by 3 for starters when it arrives.

Thinking about processor and graphics card updates then but basically not sure what is worth doing whilst sticking with current system otherwise. There is a review of my motherboard somewhere on this site so any info that means something to people (but NOT me....) is around nearby.

Any help greatly appreciated but please remember limited budget as a few other commitments right now.

Nebzor · 28 Jun 2007 at 06:35

How much are you looking to spend? And is this only for that kind of game and other casual usage?

semi-pro waster · 28 Jun 2007 at 07:40

Welcome to the forums, I've got to leave for work in a moment but I'd be thinking about perhaps getting an X800series or 6800series graphics card to replace your current one. It will offer a nice speed boost but check that your PSU is up to it, it should have a label on the side with the rails on it if you don't know the specification.

The Mad Jock · 28 Jun 2007 at 11:45

Looking to just spend a few £££ to tide it over for a few months, £100 maybe?

Will ultimately build or buy one specced for what I want which is really just games MS Flight Simulator 2004 (no intention of buying FSX for a good while), and driving games. Not into the latest graphics-hungry games, I like to pick them up cheap once they've been out a year or so

.

I have my laptop for internet and anything work/office related and like to keep my stuff separate like that.

melbourne720 · 28 Jun 2007 at 11:48

Something like a 7600 GT, or a 6800 GT, would work wonders for that system. I'd go with a 7600 GT because of it's low power requirements. 1GB of memory is good start as well.

The Mad Jock · 28 Jun 2007 at 16:38

Thanks for responses so far folks.

Regarding the processor, motherboard manual says it takes a Socket 462 (Socket A) AMD processor from 600Mhz-2.25Ghz (so my Athlon 2200 is an 1.8Ghz, I believe). Can you still get new processors for this socket type and what would be the quickest one it could take? And is it worthwhile anyway?

Any tips on the exact make/model of graphics card I might consider? Been looking in the shop section and it's mind-boggling to me :confused:

!

semi-pro waster · 28 Jun 2007 at 17:59

You can't get any new CPUs for socket A or at least I haven't seen a shop stocking them for a good couple of years now, you could however try overclocking your current one a bit.

One of the graphics cards that melbourne720 is talking about is the 7600GT AGP however it is rather pricey new so have a look around and see if you can't pick one up secondhand. Other than that the graphics cards I would be looking at are (model numbers only as the brands are normally differentiated by the cooling systems and price): 6800, 6800GT, 6800ultra, X800pro, X800GTO, X800GTO2, X800XT or X850XT. Any of them would be a major step up from your current graphics card so keep an eye out for them secondhand - I wouldn't pay much more than £60 for any of them though and even that might be on the high side.