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| Thread ID: 34854 | 2003-06-25 23:07:00 | Updating an old PC, what's critical... | gerbera (4090) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 155144 | 2003-06-25 23:07:00 | My partner has a pc with the following specs: Pentium 3 - 450MHz 12.4 GB Hard Drive - Partitioned: 8GB (win2000) 4.4GB(win98) 320MB Ram 16MB Nvidia TNT2 video card Creative Labs sound card DVD ROM CDRW Drive Iomega 100MB drive 3.5 Floppy Drive We have about $1000 to spare and were thinking of upgrading board/cpu(p4 2000?)/videocard(unsure)/RAM(500mb total)/harddrive(80-120gig). - this adds up to more than 1k right now... I have since read on here variously that 1. it's not worth it, buy a new one (not enough money to do that) or 2. you also need a new power supply and case (probably financially do-able) Can we happily upgrade all the core items but still keep current drives and sound cards? the video card upgrade was for use of photo/animation software use, and a sideline for games. |
gerbera (4090) | ||
| 155145 | 2003-06-25 23:15:00 | Check out QMB computers (http://www.qmb.co.nz) | Chris Randal (521) | ||
| 155146 | 2003-06-25 23:16:00 | Do you want to play games on it? If not then don't bother as you won't see a lot of improvement. You will need a new power supply, but other than that your plan is sound. The Sound card may be ISA type, if so it's unlikely to work in a new system, most new motherboards come with integrated sound however and you can get good sound cards for about $70 now anyway. An AMD brand CPU and motherboard may be a more economical choice, however I personally would stick with a P4. Investigate the componants prior to purchasing as there is a lot more to the performance of a PC than the CPU speed (RAM, Harddrive specs etc) |
BIFF (1) | ||
| 155147 | 2003-06-25 23:33:00 | Like biff asked, why are you upgrading? Sure if you were a gamer, or an architect using CAD your current machine would suck the big one, but if you just cruise the web, pick up and send E's and maybe write the occasional letter on the machine, there would be little if any gain from an upgrade. I suppose a better question to ask you would be; What do you want your machine to do that it doesn't do well now? .Chris |
Chris (3346) | ||
| 155148 | 2003-06-25 23:46:00 | You should be able to do what you want for just under $1K with a new case and psu if you stick with AMD cpu. If you don't mind onboard video you could save $ by using, say, an nForce chipset mobo like the Asus A7N266-VM, you still have the option of slotting in a gfx card later and you get onboard lan aswell with the package. Stay away from the PC Chips, FIC, type boards and stick to Asus, Gigabyte, Soltek, MSI brands IMHO. You could also start with a 40GB HDD and save a bit more, pop another one in later if you need the extra capacity or your existing 12.4GB drive. Cheers Murray P |
Murray P (44) | ||
| 155149 | 2003-06-26 00:20:00 | >Stay away from the PC Chips, FIC, type boards nothing wrong with FIC boards, they are a good main stream manfacture. PC chips......i have to agree there! Keep clear of any boards that don't have a make/model number on them! ASUS make good boards but if you don't need all the overclocking/tweaking abilities of it why bother paying the extra. theres heaps of good stable middle of the road mobo's around. as far as upgrading goes.......just make sure you NEED the upgrade and that its a decent step up in speed to make the $$$ worth while. |
tweak'e (174) | ||
| 155150 | 2003-06-26 00:38:00 | larger HDD is nice if you are running out of space , get a better graphics card if you need to play games eg GTS pro 2nd hand would be fine if you want more internet speed best to get cable . The PC you have is fine for most things other than intensive gaming and video editing , software is running far behind hardware at the moment you really dont need the latest and greatest bleeding edge technology unless you are a all out gamer who has to have the best at a horrendous cost . |
kiwibeat (304) | ||
| 155151 | 2003-06-26 01:09:00 | I did mention it's hoped to be used for animation and high graphic (photoshop, studio max, maya) use. And it is currently used for CAD and that use would increase significantly in the next few years. It would probably be used more for games if it was worth using but neither of us are "hard core gamers". I was addicted to "the sims" for a while but I got over that & I guess it "doesn't really count!". I just want it to be faster as I am very impatient and manage to lock it up quite a bit as I like having multiple things on the go at once and am not very good at waiting for things to load. |
gerbera (4090) | ||
| 155152 | 2003-06-26 03:53:00 | tweak'e, I'd take your advice on the FIC but an Asus A7N266-VM only cost me $160- Not the best O/C by accounts but a good alround board. The onboard video is better than the Geforce pro 64MB ddr card I have in another comp but I wouldn't expect it to perform great with the latest games (which is not what its used for). gerbera, if you want to do video editing and cad IMHO you would be best suited getting a good stable board and throw a good graphics card like an ATI 9600/700 pro or a GF 4 Ti and shove plenty of ram on it. A good HDD with a decent 8MB cache on it wouldn't go amiss either. Cheers Murray P |
Murray P (44) | ||
| 155153 | 2003-06-26 04:26:00 | > Check out QMB > computers (http://www.qmb.co.nz) Couldnt have said it better.. for $650-700ish you should get a nice PC :-) |
Chilling_Silently (228) | ||
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