Upgrading old Packard Bell

skronk · 2 Jun 2013 at 10:23

Hi folks,

I have decided to upgrade my old study computer which is very rarely used. It's a 6 year old PB desktop. Laptop and tablet have been taking over !

I do not game and never will. My main use will be h264 movies (Powerdirector 9) of grandkids and pics of same (ACDSee), Wp, Spreadsheet and Internet.

I would like to re-use case and PSU. PSU was replaced about 18 months ago, so, rarely used, is unbranded, and rated 650w.

I thought of AMD A10, 8gb 1866mhz ram (or higher) and mobo with HDMI socket (recommend, and match with ram please). Would like costs to be kept down as this will only be used rarely. Mind you with the amount of junk my wife watches on telly, I can see it being used more !

I also intend to bite the bullet with this "new build" and go down Linux road :eek:

.

I appreciate my video and picture programs may not work with this OS but I believe there are Linux alternatives ?

Any, and all input appreciated.

Regards

Skronk

PHazlington · 13 Jun 2013 at 20:39

Hiya, I'll try pointing you in the right direction so, firstly, I'm going to assume that the case is m-atx (as most pre-built PC's seem to be) and if it is atx, the m-atx board will fit anyway. So for the motherboard I'm going to recommend this: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-549-AS&groupid=701&catid=1903&subcat=2399
I didn't opt for a cheaper ASrock board or whatever else because I have an ASUS board myself and am pretty happy with it (also I've heard some horror stories about ASrock boards so I wouldn't risk it).

For the CPU (or APU I should say) yes an A10 will do nicely (either the 5800k or the newer 6800k, the 6800k being a tad more expensive but better performance-wise) so the 5800k: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-327-AM&groupid=701&catid=1967&subcat=1946
or
The 6800k: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-353-AM&groupid=701&catid=1967&subcat=1944

For the RAM which, by the way, is very expensive at this point in time, I just went with the cheapest stuff without compromising on quality or CAS latency so I've gone with this (anything else will do but stay away from geil RAM and maybe not get teamgroup RAM): http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-353-AM&groupid=701&catid=1967&subcat=1944

It's probably a good idea to get an aftermarket CPU cooler so: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-012-XG&groupid=701&catid=2330
I have almost the same heatsink and it is fab.

Now, you might not want to be reading this but, I would absolutely not trust that PSU at all so take the plunge and get a decent PSU: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-116-CS&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1084
That one will serve you well for a very long time.

I could have gone for the 430w PSU but I thought, if you find the PC slowing up a couple of years down the road, you can buy an SSD and/or buy a dedicated GPU and put it in crossfire with the APU, you'll need to check which cards will work with which APU (I know that the 5800k works with a 7870 but they are not for tight budgets as they are around the £170 mark) so you'll need to research that if you want to look into it but yeah if you want new fans, get BeQuiet's, Corsairs, Noctuas, Silverstones, Prolimatechs, Enermaxs, Phanteks or Bitfenixs.

Either way, have fun with it

PHazlington · 13 Jun 2013 at 20:41

Also yes if your programs don't work on Linux then you are almost guaranteed to find some open source, cheap/free software that will do the same thing.

stulid · 13 Jun 2013 at 21:05

PHazlington said:
Hiya, I'll try pointing you in the right direction so, firstly, I'm going to assume that the case is m-atx (as most pre-built PC's seem to be) and if it is atx, the m-atx board will fit anyway. So for the motherboard I'm going to recommend this: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-549-AS&groupid=701&catid=1903&subcat=2399
I didn't opt for a cheaper ASrock board or whatever else because I have an ASUS board myself and am pretty happy with it (also I've heard some horror stories about ASrock boards so I wouldn't risk it).

An A55 chipset is lacking SATAIII+USB3.0 and overcloking is gimped, a A85 board will be much better,

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-427-GI&groupid=701&catid=1903&subcat=2399

For the RAM which, by the way, is very expensive at this point in time, I just went with the cheapest stuff without compromising on quality or CAS latency so I've gone with this (anything else will do but stay away from geil RAM and maybe not get teamgroup RAM)

Nothing wrong with Team RAM.

PHazlington · 13 Jun 2013 at 21:23

Yeah, that motherboard then and the RAM meehhhh i dunno, i have teamgroup RAM and I'm just not sure about it, i would just go for a more trusted brand to be honest (wish I had too).

PHazlington · 13 Jun 2013 at 22:46

I mean, don't get me wrong, it's working fine so far, its just that if it goes pop then RMAing could be a mahoosive headache (and the latencies on the equivalent team group RAM are higher so that's another point in Crucial's favour).

PHazlington · 13 Jun 2013 at 22:57

Ahh no it was patriot black mamba ram and I've just realised that my link to the ram is actually a link to the apu, FAIL!! Its not too hard to find though, just any decent 1866Mhz dual channel RAM with CAS latencies lower than 10-10-10-30 is fine (and, as mentioned before, not geil ram)