Worth upgrading ? HTPC 2 years old !

Snow-Munki · 5 Feb 2010 at 08:27

Hi,

Just looking back at my old emails and noticed that my HTPC is now two years old ! I use this PC everyday, for watching movies / bluray / surfing the net. Don't play any games though....

Spec is:

Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H AMD 690G Socket AM2
OCZ 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 CL 4-4-4-15 PLATINUM
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ (2.1GHz) Socket AM2 Energy Efficient L2 1MB
Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Anything particularly bad with that spec ?

And just thinking out loud, if I were to play games on it ( as I just remembered I have a wired 360 controller I can use ) what would I need to upgrade ? I do have a 360 and Wii so not as important.

Thanks,

wakayoda · 5 Feb 2010 at 09:09

might want to up the speed of the ram or go micro itx

chipps101 · 5 Feb 2010 at 10:17

if you wanted to do some light gaming on it i would suggest changing the 4550 for a 4670, apart from that its a nice spec for a htpc.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 5 Feb 2010 at 11:31

If the computer works fine then I don't see the need to update any components.

Edit!!

The only thing in the computer that may need updating is if you have a PSU with under 80% efficiency as a more efficient one would mean lower electricity bills!!

Snow-Munki · 5 Feb 2010 at 14:52

Ok how about this guys ...

GFX - Getting the 5770 - About £120. Will play modern games, i'll get HD Audio. TV is only 720p so res should be fine ??

CPU - Some sort of Phenom quad core ? About £120 ?

Sound about right ?

Is my RAM really that bad, should I replace that ?

Ricardox1 · 5 Feb 2010 at 14:55

5770 would be great, I personally would replace the ram.

Snow-Munki · 5 Feb 2010 at 15:15

any suggestions what to replace the ram with ?

just quicker type ? I thought ddr2 800 was ok

dustofnations · 5 Feb 2010 at 15:30

Snow-Munki said:
any suggestions what to replace the ram with ?

just quicker type ? I thought ddr2 800 was ok

More of it

Snow-Munki · 5 Feb 2010 at 15:39

dustofnations said:
More of it

Hmm swear that is a typeo, as I thought I had 4GB of RAM. I'll double check tonight.

Does the speed of RAM matter much for me, just looking around and my motherboard max speed is only 800 mhz

Snow-Munki · 8 Feb 2010 at 09:30

Ok think I wouldn't mind doing some gaming on my HTPC. Or at least give it a go

To play stuff like Dirt 2 at reasonable detail levels. 720p monitor so res is not huge.

Can I get away with just buying the 5750 for £100 ?

chipps101 · 8 Feb 2010 at 09:40

if you are playing at 1366 x 768 i think a 5750 would be fast enough for you.