Upgrading my computer advice

Ricochet J · 3 Jul 2009 at 19:00

Currently I have:
AMD Athlon 64 3200 (socket 939)
2 * 512Mb RAM
ATI X800XL
DFI Lanparty NF4

The motherboard is very capable with SATA 2 technology and supports the older AMD X2 dual core processors.

My plan is to buy second hand:
- AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core processor (which one shall I buy? It has to be Socket 939)
- 2 * 1Gb RAM sticks to give me 2Gb in total
- A graphics card. Recommend me one.

Budget is around £200. Lower the better.

Advice would be welcome. Thanks

siumatfung · 3 Jul 2009 at 19:14

939 is out of date i do believe you would be better off saving about £500 we could spec you something awesome!!!

Ricochet J · 3 Jul 2009 at 19:15

£200 is my absolute max, otherwise I'll carry on using my system until Windows XP is phased out. The reason for the upgrades are I want a Windows 7 capable machine in the future.

Socket 939 might be out of date but the processors that suit a 939 are more than capable.

siumatfung · 3 Jul 2009 at 19:31

guess i'll give a try

brb speccing

siumatfung · 3 Jul 2009 at 19:45

you are eligible for free delivery so

this is under £200

Mattus · 3 Jul 2009 at 23:16

Sinking £200 into a 939 system just doesn't make sense. You'd be much better off investing in something newer with some upgrade potential. I'd say either go with a spec like siamatfung's above, or if you can find an extra £80 or so, get something like this:

I realise it's well over your budget, but it has the benefit that you won't have to buy a new rig for a long while. As funds allow you could upgrade that machine step-by-step to a quad-core with 8GB RAM and a GTX295 if you wanted. It's a good investment.