Upgrading a basic system for gaming needs.

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1 Aug 2010
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Hi guys/Girls

Me and the girlfriend bought a really cheap pc the other night and were wanting to spend a small amount of money on it to enable it to play games.

Firstly the games the missus wants to play are world of warcraft, counter strike source and sim3, currently the machine we have can only handle world of warcraft on low settings.

So what im wanting is some really cheap components but effective ones, to enable us to play these games hopefully on high settings.

Spec:

Asus AsRock Mobo - conroe1333-d667
Intel Pentium E2180 Dual Core
3GB - DDR2 Ram
Nvidia Geforce 210 (gt218)
500GB HDD
Windows 7 32bit


So if you could spec me some really cheap but effective parts to massively boost this system so we can enjoy games together i would be more than appreciative :D

Apologies if i have missed any vital infomation.

Kind Regards
 
checked ocuk and came up with the following:

260gtx graphic card £66 (this week only)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-166-OK&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=2077

460gtx £86
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-165-OK&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=2077

processor wise have you thought about overclocking the 2180 ? (personally i'd start off with one of those graphics cards (long as your psu is up to it) and overclocking the 2180.)

if not check the Intel E6700 (£55) or have a look around for something the E8400 or an old q6600.
 
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It's a tough one this. At first glance I was in agreement with mp260767, but then I thought about how utter rubbish that mainboard is especially when it comes to overclocking. If it's only for Warcraft, sims, counterstrike etc I may be more inclined to update the board, ram, CPU and buy a second hand 8800GT, 4850 etc for around 30 quid.

I guess it really depends on your budget, current PSU and resolution you'll be playing games at? until we know this it's hard to really come up with a decent solution :confused:
 
Whatever you do the video card that's in your system at the moment has to go, I've just had a look at the specifications for the Nvidia GeForce 210 and it's a complete pile of steaming turd! DDR2 memory with a 64 bit memory interface and a whopping 16 Cuda cores....hmm, those specs don't exactly shout out "good graphics" to me!

Quite what Nvidia were thinking when they put the caption on this picture I'll just never know :confused:

sillynv.jpg
 
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thanks for the great replys guys. Well we purchased the pc along with a LED 22inch HD monitor for £50, so im just trying to through something in there to update it a bit as i know its really dull :D, but hopefully not hopeless!

The PSU she has is a no branded one but it is 650 watt, as he upgraded this before he sold it. So that should handle some decent components.

I'm just really looking for the best possible solutions for giving this a great boost with out ripping the whole thing apart.

Kind Regards :D
 
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